


The Journey

by BeaterNightFury, Miraha



Series: One Sky, One Family [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: KH2 and DDD plot with a few twists, Other, SoRiKai here this is not a drill, Sora is NOT a stupid kid, Strange does the song thing, angry characters SWEAR, expect some flashbacks, hoping to do Kairi justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaterNightFury/pseuds/BeaterNightFury, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miraha/pseuds/Miraha
Summary: Sora opens his eyes after sleeping for a year, and suddenly finds out things are not the same.Riku embraces his new purpose and mission, looking at them not to see himself.A Nobody looks in the eyes of his victim, and finds the answers to a tragedy of a lifetime before.A sorceress from a city that never sleeps meets meets a boy from the worlds nearest to darkness, and the spark between their hearts echoes a life they never lived.Journeys begin, continue, and finish, or maybe they are nothing but milestones of one, great adventure.Starting a new journey may not be so hard.
Relationships: Kairi/Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Series: One Sky, One Family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1423153
Comments: 23
Kudos: 17





	1. Platform Zero

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen Avengers Endgame, there may be a hint of spoilers for part of the movie's ending in Chapter 1. Nothing major, but still, readers beware.
> 
> Also, we decided to tune down a little the stupid on Sora. He may be naive, but he's not so much of an idiot if he managed to stay alive until now...

_Dear Pence,_

_I think our great adventure might be almost over._

_Right now the place we’re in is called New York, but people also call it the Big Apple or The City That Never Sleeps. The world we’re in hasn’t had a monster invasion – at least not much, and we’ve met a rather STRANGE guy who keeps them at bay along with two apprentices of his._

_(He says they’re called Heartless, by the way.)_

_I’ve tried to ask the Moogle Guild if there’s some way for your mail to reach us even if we keep moving, but judging by what our host is telling us, we might even not need it at all._

_A few weeks’ time and we might be home again, and by then I want to see all the pictures you took. Mom, Dad, your friends, all the ways Twilight Town has changed while we were away… everything._

_Say hi to Hayner and Olette, Gladio asks you whether you can check on Iris, and somebody tell Seifer that as soon as Noct is back, he’ll knock the daylights outta him!_

_Love You._

_Your big brother Prompto_

* * *

Ever since Sora had woken up in the abandoned mansion, he was counting on finding his friend and going home, but he had been finding more and more clues that he had a reason or two to postpone his homecoming.

A voice in his head kept repeating that _no way_ , it wasn’t all over, that there was danger, the several centimeters of bare knee where his trousers were supposed to cover were a clear sign that time had passed since he had defeated Ansem the Seeker of Darkness, and while in the last memory he could recall, when they had been camping and he had resolved they had to look for little Shiro, who had been kidnapped by some organized group of hoodlums, his voice had started barely cracking… now he sounded like his old man every time he opened his mouth.

«I don’t think I’ll get used to it so soon…» he confessed to Donald and Goofy while they walked the street that, according to the three kids in the alley, led to the station.

Sora had found he had a weird interest in the apartment on the first floor of the building just above the kids’ usual spot, but the shortest of the three had mentioned him that the house belonged to the mayor’s son, who had used it to attend school in town and had left about a year before to investigate about strange things.

The world in which they had found themselves upon waking was lit by the warm light of the sunset, but when they got to the railway station, they noticed that the clock read ten past ten. The arms seemed to be working normally, so it wasn’t broken or anything, but still it seemed weird.

There were two people standing in front of the glass doors. One was a girl with a fuchsia T-shirt that looked a little too tight on her, boyish hiking shorts that might have belonged to an older teenager, and a pair of black boots, and the other, covered in a black coat…

« _Your Majesty!_ » Donald immediately squawked and broke into a run. Sora and Goofy ran after him, but they still had to reach them when strange, ghoulish figures, that seemed to be wearing sheets like ghosts but with added zippers, surrounded them from the two exposed sides of the square.

King Mickey was the first to draw his Keyblade, annihilating three of them in a single slash.

«Go with them, Shiro!» he shouted to the child, who was trying to get into guard stance with a beam of light flashing uselessly in her hand.

« _You_ are _Shiro_?» Donald stared at her, bamboozled.

«Yeah, so what?» The girl gave him a challenging look.

Almost without thinking, Sora took her hand and they crossed the doors to the station, closing them after themselves.

Sora was the one who closed, and took a look at the square behind. King Mickey had put the white monsters to flight, and now he was chasing the ones that were still standing.

If they could actually “stand”.

«I thought thirteen hoodlums had taken you.» Sora dared saying when the hall fell silent.

Shiro gave him an annoyed look, without saying anything, then she stuck a hand in a bag she carried on her back and threw a purse in Sora’s hands.

«You _are_ Sora, right? Our train leaves from Platform Zero.»

She said nothing else while Sora bought tickets and while the three kids from the alley, Hayner, Olette, and Pence, arrived at the station to say them goodbye, but every now and then she looked down and murmured stuff in her hand, as if she was talking to herself. After a while, Goofy asked her whether something was wrong, and she pulled a stuffed Moogle out of her backpack and started playing with it.

Sora pocketed the tickets and went back to her. He felt rather concerned about the kid’s behavior – something in his head kept telling him _it was so unlike her_ , even if he barely knew her.

He felt weird. The presence of those three kids made him feel a lump in his throat, and he would have wanted to hug Shiro tight, even if he didn’t know _why_.

They stayed in silence while they got on the train and the carriage left, and all of a sudden the world outside the windows changed, from the Twilight Town countryside to a single track, suspended in the sky.

Donald and Goofy seemed to recognize where they were, but Sora, who had never seen such a sight, knelt on his seat and pressed his nose on the window, gazing at the sky all around them.

After a while he noticed that, on her seat, Shiro was doing the same, and for the first time after a while she was smiling.

«First time you see the stars from so close?» Sora turned to her.

«I never got on a train before now.» Shiro confessed. She pulled back and sat on her seat, then she started playing with her plush again.

That toy Moogle really seemed to have seen a lot. It had lost its fur in some spots, the buttons in the place of the eyes were visibly different and sewn with different thread, the pom-pom on the top of its head was rather floppy, the stuffing was lumpy and there were visible darns around two of the main seams. Something had been written under one of its feet – someone had embroidered names on it.

Shiro’s name was the most visible one, but underneath it, sewn with another thread whose color had faded with time, Sora could recognize the name “Zack”.

«How’s Mr. Kupo doing?» Sora asked almost immediately. He didn’t know if that was the plushie’s name, but it came natural to him, thinking that could be a plausible name for a Moogle.

Shiro suddenly looked up and stared in his eyes, as if she was looking for something.

«… Roxas?» she murmured. If only a moment before she had looked calm and relaxed looking outside, now she was as tense as she had been before leaving.

«Say what?» Sora stiffened. The name wasn’t new to him, but… where had he heard it?

If he had not awakened and found himself to have grown taller inside his own clothes, he would have suspected that, during all the time he didn’t remember, he had _done_ something he had no memory of.

«Sora, do you know what’s a Nobody?» Shiro sustained his gaze.

When Sora shook his head, Shiro looked down.

«Heartless steal hearts. Sometimes, something gets left behind.» Shiro explained, her face pulled in a grimace. «Those _things_ that attacked us at the station, they were Nobodies. Or, well, the Organization calls them Dusks.»

«Wak! Do you mean they used to be _people_?» Donald almost shoved Sora aside, trying to understand what they were talking about.

«But _Sora did become a Heartless…_ » Goofy approached them from the other side. «Do you mean there’s his own monster like those somewhere around?»

Shiro looked at Sora, then at Donald, and then at Goofy.

«Some Nobodies look just like the people they were. They act like people and speak and think.» She leaned on the back of her seat and sighed. «And they do have names. Axel for example, he’s the guy who raised me. Just, Axel wasn’t his real name, when he was a person his name was Lea.»

«So how do _you_ call him?» Sora scratched his hair with a hand.

«Most of the time he was just bro for me.» Shiro hinted at a grin. «But that’s not the point.» She put Mr. Kupo back in her backpack and pulled out a notebook and a pencil. She opened the notebook from the end and wrote A-X-E-L in capital letters. Immediately underneath, she wrote L-E-A, then she raised the page for Sora, Donald and Goofy to read.

«Gawrsh!» Goofy commented. «It’s an _anagram_!»

Shiro smiled and nodded, then she turned a page and put the pencil in Sora’s hand.

«Write your name, Sora.»

Sora could imagine where Shiro was expecting him to go.

He hoped his guess was wrong.

«Shiro, who’s Roxas?»

The girl looked down on the blank page.

«He’s my best… my only friend.» She seemed to be close to tears. «I miss him so much… he was in the Organization, but… he was a captive just like me. And then this DiZ guy got him and told him he wasn’t supposed to exist. And then he forced him to get back…»

Shiro raised a hand and touched the front of Sora’s jacket.

«Whatever happened, Shiro, please don’t put the blame on me.» Sora hastily pointed out, even as a voice in his head told him no one was blaming him.

«I’ve been told I’ll be safe with you.» Shiro murmured. «That when the Organization will be no longer a threat, we’ll go looking for my parents.»

Sora sat next to her.

«I wish I could do something for Roxas as well,» he told her, looking at his now too tight shoes. «It’s not fair, only you being free and all of that.»

They spent the rest of the journey in silence. After a while, Shiro started yawning, and, before the train reached its destination, she fell asleep on Sora’s shoulder.

The boy stayed still and quiet until the train stopped, then he gently nudged her awake and helped her get off the train.

* * *

Mickey slashed at the last enemy – _Dusks_ , as Shiro had called them – and stopped to catch his breath in the deep of the woods.

Twilight Town was safe, for the moment.

He could only hope for Sora and Shiro to be far away from there, safe with Master Yen Sid. _They had to be_ , Sora knew his stuff, and Donald and Goofy, as a guardian and a father, were more than capable of taking care of a child…

… but Mickey could not help thinking things could have gone differently.

Riku had already hinted a couple of times at the idea of looking for Shiro’s family. Of looking for _Terra and Aqua_.

Mickey had been grateful for the hood he had been wearing when Riku had told him – very few other things could have masked his shame.

He feared the moment he would have to tell Riku he was alive because Aqua had chosen to stay behind. Especially with the way Riku hated himself lately.

It would have been much easier if Aqua had been by their side again. It would have taken at least three well-trained Keyblade wielders to break into the Castle That Never Was and thwart what was left of Organization XIII, and Sora needed time to recover what he had lost during the year he had spent out cold…

… together with him, Aqua could have cleared the place in half a day, she could have taken Castle Oblivion back to its original state, and last, _but not the least_ , she would have been the family Shiro needed so desperately.

And _now_ , Master Yen Sid had even forbidden him to go looking for her. Without DiZ and his way out, there was no guarantee there would have been a way out for him, either. Not without a rare spell that only a few chosen Keyblade wielders could master.

Why did things have to be so complicated?

* * *

« _Heartless, Heartless, Heartless!_ » Donald loudly protested once they were on top of the staircase of the tower. «Things haven't changed one bit!»

Shiro had never seen someone get so stressed out for mere _nerves_.

«That’s weird. Roxas told me he destroyed so many of them…» Shiro murmured. «And sometimes I read his reports, and… well, he did destroy hundreds.»

«Well, it's a good thing we're on the job, then.» Goofy commented.

«Hundreds?» Sora mumbled. «Last year we got their leader… how can it be they didn’t even… what’s the word…? How can I say it…?»

«Dwindled?» Goofy guessed.

«Something like that.»

“ _I think there must be a bigger fish behind whatever they defeated,_ ” Shiro’s conscience suggested her. “ _I wouldn’t be surprised if everything was connected. The Heartless Roxas was hunting, the fact their numbers didn’t dwindle, your family… Shiro, whatever question you get asked on what you saw, spill the beans on everything you know._ ”

«Donald, Goofy, who’s this Master Yen Sid who lives in this tower?» Shiro asked the two adults.

«He taught the King everything he knows!» Donald immediately explained. «As that Pete guy in the courtyard said, he’s a powerful sorcerer. He used to teach the Keyblade wielders, but it’s been years since he doesn’t carry one anymore.»

It was Goofy who pushed the last door open.

They entered in a small round room, Donald and Goofy leading and Sora and Shiro following them.

An old man was sitting at a desk, reading an ancient-looking book. He was wearing indigo robes and a pointed hat of the same color, and his beard was grey and reached his waist, combed in two tips.

He looked up when the door opened, and Donald and Goofy saluted him with a bow.

«Kids, show some respect!» Donald threw a look at Sora and Shiro. «Master Yen Sid, it’s an honor.»

Both Donald and Goofy took off their hats.

Shiro and Sora stood between the two, and if Shiro felt out of place, she could easily notice Sora looked out of place too.

Yen Sid gestured to them to calm down, then he spoke.

«So, you two are Sora and Shiro.» He gestured to them to come forward, then his gaze moved on Shiro.

«I’ve met your parents, before the battle in which they vanished,» he told her. «Keep having faith. Their stars still shine in the sky. You’ll see them again one day.»

The sorcerer looked strict, but despite his solemn tone, his words made Shiro feel immediately safe. He didn’t have the same impersonal tone Saïx or Xemnas had, or Axel’s falsely secure one – he seemed to mean exactly what he said.

«My pupil told me about your situation, and we have discussed on what to do about it.» Yen Sid kept on looking at Shiro. «Until things don’t get solved, we’ll make sure you will be placed in a safe house.»

His look moved to the older boy.

«As for you, Sora… you have a perilous journey ahead of you. You must be well prepared. Mickey mentioned me you lost much of your skill, but with the right training you should be able to recover what you lost.»

«We have to leave for another mission, don’t we?» Sora seemed slightly sad, but determined. «I hoped I could find my friend Riku and go back home, but… after what Shiro said, I think it’s not over at all.»

He stayed in silence for a moment, looking at Shiro.

«It’s about the Heartless again? With them still running about and all the rest?»

«Your past endeavors did prevent an immense effusion of Heartless from the great darkness. Make no mistake about that. However, the Heartless are darkness made real, and darkness lingers yet in every heart.»

Sora, Donald and Goofy seemed to understand what was that speech all about, and the three of them shared a disappointed look on their faces.

«Now it is time to speak of the enemies that you will encounter.» Yen Sid stood up and waved a hand towards a corner of the room. The silhouette of a Shadow materialized where he had pointed. «If one yields to the darkness in their heart, they too will become a Heartless. But you know this.»

He waved a hand again at the fake Shadow, and a Dusk appeared next to it.

«At times, if someone with a strong heart and will… be they evil or good… becomes a Heartless, the empty shell they leave behind…»

«Nobodies. I’ve told them on the train.» Shiro interrupted him.

“ _Tell ‘em everything, kid,_ ” her conscience immediately told her, in an almost amused tone. Shiro cleared her throat.

«The ones who went after us at the station, like that one over there, are like the pawns in chess. You’ve seen how the King slashed the daylights out of them. But the one who kept me captive… you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from real people. They think and they _fight_ like normal people, and one of them actually taught me how to handle a sword.»

She stayed in silence for a moment to take a breath.

«They may call themselves Organization XIII, but they remained in seven.» She started counting on her fingers. «Number ten, Luxord. He’d never leave his playing cards and he has powers over time. Number nine, Demyx. He’d spend all day playing music, I think he’s still alive only because he’s such a scaredy-Moogle. Number seven, Saïx. He’s the Superior’s right-hand man. Number three, Xaldin… he’d make winds blow so hard it’d be impossibile to get close to him. Number two, Xigbar, the worlds’ most vile being or not-being. He’s missing an eye and he lost some hair when he got burned, you can’t be wrong. The Superior, Xemnas. DiZ calls him Xehanort, but he was Father to me.»

In the corner of her eye, Shiro could see Yen Sid having a start, hearing the mention of the name Xehanort.

«I don’t know what happened to Axel, but I hope he’s on the run. We were charged with bringing back Roxas to the Castle, but things happened, and I don’t think Father was happy about it.»

She stayed quiet one last time and pointed at Sora.

«Roxas is here.»

She told everything she remembered. Of how Xemnas had used Roxas’s Keyblade to gather hearts, of the Kingdom Hearts moon on top of Castle That Never Was, and how impossible was to get there if one didn’t know exactly where to go. Of Marluxia, Larxene, Vexen, Zexion, and Lexaeus, the fallen. She even pulled out her diary for Yen Sid to read it, despite there were many pages that Shiro didn’t remember leaving blank.

From the hood of Sora’s jacket jumped out a cricket that started taking notes.

«I think that, in the end, Axel let me go.» Shiro concluded, at the end of her speech. «When I was little, he and Saïx always said that… they’d take me home one day.»

“ _I think Axel ended up keeping his promise._ ” Her conscience’s voice sounded exactly like a grin. “ _I think I have no longer a reason to keep you safe, kid._ ”

As her conscience spoke, Shiro immediately felt lighter, as if a weight was lifted off her heart. Her reaction had to be rather visible, as Sora asked her whether something had happened.

«I… don’t…» Shiro answered in a low murmur.

“ _Come on, reach out!_ ” her conscience suggested her.

«Reach?» Shiro raised her right hand. The four occupants of the room stared at her, like Roxas, Axel and Saïx had always done when they caught her “talking to herself”, but Shiro paid no attention to them. Something in her hand had become heavy all of a sudden, and the usual beam of light had materialized between her fingers.

But this time, it didn’t flash and it didn’t dim – it slowly faded, and when the room went back to its usual dim light, in Shiro’s hand was a weapon – a black and white sword with a hilt with protruding spikes, an odd glyph on the blade, white on the outside and black on the inside.

Shiro almost opened her hand in surprise. She couldn’t, though, hold back a scream.

Immediately after her, Sora, too, emitted a scream that was definitely high-pitched despite his broken voice. Donald and Goofy leapt forward, exclaiming together: «A key!» with a surprised voice.

Yen Sid didn’t move, but his eyes were wide open, and his mouth was agape in an expression of tacit surprise.

«It’s the first time…» Shiro murmured examining her Keyblade (her _OWN_!) closely. It was visibly different from both Sora’s and Roxas’s ones, and it didn’t look like Riku’s either, and it felt an extension of her arm like the wooden toy she had found in Castle Oblivion had never been.

«Someone must have Bequeathed her when she wasn’t aware of it…» Yen Sid took a hand to his beard. «Not Eraqus… he would have never done it. And no one in their right mind would Bequeath a baby or a toddler.»

He lowered his hand. He stood up and looked at the two kids.

«This calls for a change of plans,» he announced, then he pointed at a door to his left. «In the meantime, through there, you'll find three good fairies. Those clothes look a bit too small for you, or unsuited for travel. The fairies will create for you more appropriate garments.»

In the room next to the sorcerer’s study there was another round room, in which three fairies, clothed in three different colors, introduced themselves as Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. They were literally _ecstatic_ seeing not one, but two Keyblade wielders in front of them (they had probably “dropped some eaves” through the door) and started immediately arguing over which color would they be using for Shiro’s clothes.

«Pink will do! It would match her hair!» Flora was stating in a bossy tone.

«Why not _blue_ like her eyes?» Merryweather loudly grumbled.

They kept arguing “like two old ladies” (or that was what Shiro’s conscience said), and the girl had to count six more of their argumentations before she lost her patience.

«Just make it VIOLET!» she said, clenching her fists and raising her voice. «That’s my favorite color!»

Some moments later, the two kids reentered Yen Sid’s room in their new outfits, Sora with black jacket and pants, a navy blue shirt with two red front pockets, and two pouches of the same color hanging on the sides of the trousers secured by yellow straps, and Shiro with a black and white T-shirt and a pair of black leggings with violet straps. She also wore Sora’s old jacket, that had looked definitely small on him and almost fit her perfectly.

Yen Sid pointed at something outside the window, and they leaned against it just to notice a funny-looking vehicle, apparently composed of what seemed like huge children’s building blocks. Sora, Donald and Goofy seemed to recognize it, but Shiro almost found it ridiculous.

«So does that _thing_ travel the worlds?»

«The thing is called a Gummiship.» Donald stated. «Now I hope you’re ready, Shiro, because we’re about to take off!»

* * *

The last time Sora had seen Hollow Bastion, all that was left of that world was a castle in ruins, surrounded by waterfalls that completely ignored gravity – ascending from what could have been either a lake or the remains of a huge plumbing system.

The castle was still there, shadowed by a couple of cranes, but instead of an endless desert of water and stone, it was surrounded by stone walls, houses, and some hints of streets and patches of freshly worked soil that could have been gardens.

«Aerith says that it was mostly the municipal district and the castle area that got saved first,» Yuffie, who was guiding them in the streets, had started telling them. «Or, well, they _came back_ when you locked the door and everything. The castle area was where all of Lord Ansem’s workers used to live, like the old lady who took care of the library, or Mr. Nikos, who came back home with his wife shortly after we did… their son never did, though. I don’t even remember his name, just that he and Aerith were going steady.» She pulled a face, almost in disgust. «The district we’re in now is the municipal one. Hold your noses, we’re about to pass in front of the Justice’s house.»

«Why the nose? Stinky Heartless?» Shiro looked around.

«’Morning, kids!» A man appeared at the door. His hair was greying, but looked definitely blue, and he was holding in his arms a small boy, probably one year old, with dark skin and curly raven hair that made his head look like a black dandelion.

«’Morning to you, _Your Odor_!» Yuffie waved an arm. «How’s Fitch doing?»

«How are you doing, Yuffie?» The Justice let go of the child on the lawn outside his house and approached them. «Are they friends of yours?»

«Yeah, this is Sora and she’s… Shiro, right?»

«Nice to meet you, sir!» Shiro stepped forward and held out the hand with which she wasn’t clutching her toy Moogle. She was looking at the toddler in a curious way. «Are you, uhm, that child’s father?»

The Justice looked first at the little one, then at Shiro.

«Uhm, yeah, child, Finn is my son. One of the two, at least. He never met his big brother.»

Shiro chuckled.

«Axel was right, Somebodies can be _really_ small.»

«Sora, what is she talking about?» Yuffie pulled a face again.

«That’s a long story…» Sora gritted his teeth. He didn’t feel like spilling the beans in front of _Your Odor_ about Nobodies and the Organization XIII and the fate of the worlds. Donald and Goofy had stayed behind, filling Donald’s uncle Scrooge in about the situation they were facing, but had they been within earshot… well, Sora had forgotten the last year, but he definitely had memory of how Donald could _hurt_ with a well-aimed whack at his head.

Yuffie was about to say something else, but at that point Finn, who was able to walk but didn’t seem to have much control over his legs, fell on his butt, and while he was trying to get up again, brownish stains that were _not_ dirt appeared on his overalls.

«Uhm, _Your Horror_ …» Yuffie seemed to forget what she was about to say. «I think Finn’s diaper exploded…»

Some minutes later, the kids still laughing despite Donald and Goofy had already caught up with them, they stood at the door of one of the houses in the borough, with holes in the roof patched by colorful umbrellas that almost seemed to be moving on their own. Yuffie opened the door: in the main room, in front of a large computer, there were three people facing away from the door.

«Meet the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee!» Yuffie announced in a cheerful tone. The three – Aerith, Cid and Leon – turned to them, and Aerith was the first to smile and to tell them how much they had been missed.

«Well, if you ain't in top sha…» Cid was about to say, then he had a start on his own chair and almost fell backwards on his computer. « _Jumping Chocobos_!»

«What’s wrong?» Yuffie stood in front of Cid and looked at him as if he had gone mad.

A moment later, Aerith had a start too – she had probably noticed something, and probably Sora had a guess on what it could be – _if Cloud had known about Shiro…_

«Shiro, is that really you?»

Aerith made a few steps towards her, looking attentively – her face, her clothes, the toy Moogle the girl was clutching in her arms.

«I…» Shiro held Aerith’s gaze. «Yeah, my name is Shiro… and this is Mr. Kupo…»

Aerith hardly let her finish talking. She covered in a couple steps the space between then and gave her a tight hug.

«Uhm… I don’t think she actually remembers you.» Goofy commented from behind Sora.

«Do you know her?» Donald echoed him.

As they spoke, Shiro let go Mr. Kupo with a hand, still holding it with the other, and slowly raised her arms to return Aerith’s embrace.

«You were one of the orphans in Lord Ansem’s castle…» Aerith explained her, stepping backwards and leaving a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. «But… we thought nobody got out of there alive. My friends taking care of you, the librarian, the people working in there…»

«Nobodies got out of there _indeed_ …» Shiro grimaced.

Aerith and Leon gave her a puzzled look, and Sora felt that was seemly to explain things.

«Shiro is a Keyblade wielder like me. She was a hostage of an Organization XIII, composed of beings called _Nobodies_. Shiro remembers their names and told us a lot about them, but it looks like they’re another threat.»

«Well, that _does_ explain a lot.» Leon covered his mouth with a hand. «Follow me to the bailey. There's something you need to see.»

He walked to the door, but he stopped when he saw that Shiro, too, seemed to be willing to follow.

«No, not you, kid. I’ve got work for you, too.» His voice was almost annoyed. «There’s this little monster that sneaks through the borough every day at four o’clock, it dismantles hard drives, reverses road signs, and stole a lot of left shoes. The defensive system doesn’t even recognize what it is, let alone attack it, so I need _another_ Keyblade wielder on the job to keep watch for it.»

Sora noticed that behind Shiro, Aerith was rolling her eyes in a silent protest, but a threatening look from Leon dissuaded him from saying anything. Yen Sid had told him to keep Shiro _safe_ , and he wasn’t going to let her endanger herself like that.

«You mean… you want me to _stay_?» Shiro seemed to have understood. «You mean, until I catch it? I can stay _with you_?»

«Of course, you can stay at my place.» Aerith laid a hand on her sleeve again. «Both you and Mr. Kupo. You’re welcome here.»

This time, it was Shiro who hugged Aerith.

«Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!» she squeaked.

«She can’t have met many decent people…» Cid gave her a skeptical look, removing the toothpick from his mouth. «Fine. As if we didn’t already have a little kid to take care of…»

« _Hey!_ » Yuffie loudly protested. «First, don’t call me a little kid. Second, Shiro is a _Keyblade wielder_ , call her by what she is. Third, as Your Horror says, we have a duty to help those who cannot take care of themselves, is it clear?»

The young ninja took Shiro aside and gave her a smirk.

«And with that blade of yours? Between me and ol’ Mister Merlin, we’ll give you some time to learn and soon you’ll be kicking Heartless a…»

«YUFFIE!»

* * *

The New York Sanctum, 177A Bleecker Street, was usually a quiet place by day, but the night clubs nearby sometimes let some music filter through the walls, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The Master of the building had remained for a moment in silence, listening – the song coming from outside sounded rather old, and it repeated continuously its chord progression.

G major, E minor, C major, D major, and so on one more time, and _when the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we see…_

«Stand By Me, by Ben E. King, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. A worldwide success in 1961 and 1986. Covered by John Lennon, Playing for Change, Imagine Dragons, and countless others I won’t even mention. The ‘50s progression, its own chord progression, is often called _Stand By Me changes_.» Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, hinted at a smile, shook his head and spoke as the music faded in the distance.

His six auditors listened in silence, then the only girl stifled a laugh with a hand.

«On campus, some of the professors still tell everyone of when you used to do such lectures _during a surgery_ ,» she commented.

«Well, I’m glad to know I’m still remembered for _this_ ,» Strange joked. «Now, Luna, you were reporting to me about the Heartless situation in Broadway…?»

«Trapped them all in the Mirror Dimension.» The girl took behind her ear a lock of her platinum blonde hair that had gotten loose from her ponytail. «They seemed to have quite an interest for that sickly homeless man who often lurks near the entrances of the theaters. We still don’t know why.»

«They used to lurk the galleries and the woods in Twilight Town. The dark and moist places.» One of the four travelers adjusted on his nose a pair of glasses, looking down. «And you say they’re from another dimension. A _dark_ dimension.»

«I’ve said dark _world_ , Ignis. The Dark Dimension is another place, and I hope I’ll never have to tell you boys about it.» Strange grumbled. «Ideally, if we could close all communication with this… let’s call it Realm of Darkness, the problem would be solved, but the only way to effectively do it would be to understand what caused it to be opened in the first place.»

Strange looked at his two acolytes, the young man and the girl on his left and right, almost hoping they would spare him the embarrass. Ravus didn’t seem to like the four strangers much, but Luna had almost taken a liking to them, especially to the younger two.

«Anyway, during my observations on worlds, I’ve noticed a _change_ coming from your home world. Something happened. _Someone_ moved.» Strange looked at the leader of the four boys, Noctis, who seemed to be visibly worried and hanging off his words. «I’ve already said the four of you have to go home with what you’re learning, but now, as soon as the situation here is fixed, is even more important that you do.»

«Do you mean our home is in danger?» Noctis’s best friend, Prompto, stepped forward.

Strange would have wanted to say that _no_ , it wasn’t just _their_ home, things wouldn’t have stopped there, that the eye of the storm was moving, and maybe even the _people who could have stopped it_ , but it would have been difficult to explain to a mere group of young adventurers things that implied the manipulation of time, the presence of several parallel timelines, and a complicated evaluation of probabilities.

The only thing he could do was to manipulate some of the events, telling them all he could tell them, and keeping hidden everything that could have been too dangerous or compromising to reveal.

He looked once more at his students, Ravus, who had been injured as a kid during the Chitauri Invasion and had found in the Mystical Arts a way of healing and another reason to live and fight, and Luna, that like him a lifetime before, had chosen the study of medicine to save human lives.

Their timeline had been deprived of their Thanos, who had traveled to another and found there his demise.

Just to be given something else – _someone_ – that could have potentially been much worse.

The other Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, the one that had ended up fighting Thanos, would have sacrificed friends for that victory.

«Not if we intervene.»

Strange did not know if he was ready to lose his pupil.


	2. Nothing in the Worlds

\- _11 Years Earlier –_

Cloud ran across the main square, splashing in the puddles with his rubber boots and drawing outraged shouts from passersby. That October had turned out to be rather rainy, but according to the weather forecast he had watched that morning on the old TV set in the kitchen, Halloween would have been dry.

He had been crossing his fingers for days – it was his first Halloween with kids who weren’t Tifa, and he just _couldn’t wait_.

(No offence meant for Tifa, but after three years of junior high in which she had been the only one in their class to hang out with him regularly, having three older friends was _cool_.)

The road from the outskirts of the city to the municipal district was rather long, but his mother had ordered him to get home and get changed before doing anything else, also because “those three boys weren’t even in his class so it was even useless to try studying together”. That, and Cloud was more than convinced that he would have had to pay the laundry off his pocket money, had he ruined his school uniform.

He ended his rush in front of the Justice’s house, he cleaned his boots on the rug under the porch, and noticed there were several other pairs of boots in front of the door – he would have _liked_ not to be the last one, for a change.

He swung a little on his feet, then he gathered his courage and rang the bell.

 _Why did it have to be Isa’s place?_ Lea and Zack, who lived in the castle district, were closer, even if Lea’s house smelled of old lady and Zack’s parents were rather embarrassing.

The door opened, and Bolt the dog almost _bolted_ outside, flung onto Cloud, and started licking his face.

«Hi, Cloud.» Isa held the door and shook his head. «Big Stinky here heard you coming.»

«Who else came?» Cloud pointed at the rubber boots stacked near the door before taking off his own. «The small ones must be Kairi’s…»

«Aerith. Zack _insisted_ and she’s got cookies.»

Cloud waited for Bolt to get inside, then entered the house. It was rare for Zack to have a completely spare afternoon, but now that things were getting back to normal, it happened more often. The other kids were at the dining room table, where someone laid an open cookie jar, and little Kairi was sitting on a pile of cushions on a chair, doodling something on a coloring book.

Bolt trotted around the room, then he approached her and laid his snout on her lap, staring at her and begging for cuddles.

«We couldn’t leave her at Yuna’s place, the imp’s got a fever.» Lea explained in an absent-minded tone when Cloud joined them at the table.

«You know, Lea, that’s weird of you.» Aerith grumbled at him. «Until ten minutes ago you were telling all of us how cute Shiro looked when you dressed her as a ghost with that sheet that she got torn, and now you’re upset at having to take care of your own sister?»

Lea rolled his eyes.

«C’mon, Aerith, Kairi _has her friends_ , got it memorized?»

«You’re still her family.»

Cloud took a seat at the last spare chair and waited for Isa to start speaking.

«Now, guys. The high school is organizing a party with prizes for the best costumes, and I _know_ we were planning to go trick-or-treating…»

«Not just planning. Genesis and Angeal want me to patrol in my civvies, assuming I’d be there.» Zack shrugged. «You know, for Halloween vandals.»

«Zack, you’re never on duty after eight thirty.» Isa objected. «We do our walk, we leave Kairi at Ms. Edith’s, and then we go to the party. And we have to be there, because _I_ have to make sure no one smuggles alcohol or stuff.»

Lea laughed and pretended to roll his eyes again.

«First watching out for vandals and then for booze. You two really want to kill all the fun, heh?»

«If we don’t, good luck with entering the fire brigade, you.» Isa did not even flinch. «By the way, we still have to decide on costumes, no matter if we want to go each as their own or as a group. My mother gave me this in the morning, before I came to school, but I was running late and I couldn’t put it in my backpack…»

He pulled out what could have looked like a rather big piece of hairy leather, that with a careful look revealed itself to be a realistic rubber wolf mask.

It was then Kairi screamed, took Bolt by the collar and ran into the guests’ room on the ground floor using the dog as living shield.

«Oh, _great_ ,» was Lea’s only comment.

«I think that’s a _no_.» Aerith removed the mask from Isa’s hands. «Maybe at school, but you can’t trick-or-treat with that, you’d scare Kairi.»

Isa took the mask back and put it away.

«That’ll be for another time.» He hinted at a bitter grin.

He made a few steps towards the other room to make sure Kairi and Bolt were okay, then he took them back in the living room and gave Kairi a couple cookies, and finally went back to his seat.

«Alright, y’all, I have another idea.»

He left the room again, took the stairs that led to his room on the upper floor, and went back downstairs with a video tape in his hands. Five teenagers, four boys and a girl, were pictured on the cover.

« _Scary Things_?» Lea immediately commented. «You wanna dress up like the radio kids?»

«Well, we’re five. If we do things right, why not?» Isa smiled. «We are the right number and the costumes are rather simple, it’s gonna be easy even for Cloud. Aerith can be Fourteen, Zack can be Raphael since they are going steady, Finn is the shortest so it has to be Cloud, and you and I can be Austin and Denzel.»

«But Austin is _fat_!» Lea complained.

«And he’s also the mind behind all the cool traps, remember?» Isa smirked at him. «Come on, Lea, it’s a matter of teamwork!... and Bolt can be the gremlin, as long as we can take him with us.»

«Yeah, but what about me?»

They all turned when Kairi intervened.

* * *

_R------ HIGH SCHOOL HALLOWEEN PARTY_

_BEST GROUP_

Cloud’s gaze stayed on that old photograph. The last Halloween party at their high school, even if no one knew it would have been.

«Is that kid over there you, Cloud?» Yuffie stopped next to him and gave him a smirk.

The young man would have liked to put that picture away, but it was affixed to the wall, and anyway it wouldn’t have been easy to hide it. Lea, Isa and Zack almost seemed to be staring at him, immortalized forever by that picture in an eternal smile.

«Are they Lea and Isa?» Shiro joined them. Recognizing Lea’s red hair under the baseball cap wasn’t easy, and Isa was almost hidden behind the slingshot and the bandana, but she seemed to remember their faces. «Feels strange, seeing them together and smiling. And that boy holding Aerith… Cloud, that’s Zack, isn’t he?»

«How do you know their names? The three of them vanished while you still wore diap…» Yuffie was about to reply, but Shiro opened her bag and pulled out what was _definitely_ old Mr. Kupo.

«Aerith must have mentioned them.» Cloud mumbled, then he went back to clearing the floor from the debris.

«Uhm… yeah, Aerith, she told me I called Lea bro.» Shiro clutched Mr. Kupo, but her face and her voice showed quite the lack of certainty. Cloud was reminded of Saïx and of Shiro’s picture.

«Still, Cloud… what happened to Zack? Aerith didn’t want to tell me…»

Cloud stayed in silence. No matter how hard he _tried_ , he could not _remember_ what had exactly happened. He had vague memories of running away, of being sick like he had never been before, the chore they had received from Saïx, he remembered _leaving with Zack and coming back alone_.

«Zack and Aerith were in love with each other.» He did his best to explain everything to Shiro. «You know, ahem, like… you don’t know Hercules and Megara, do you?»

«You mean they wanted to be a family?» Shiro seemed to understand the matter.

Behind Shiro, Cloud saw Yuffie covering her mouth to stifle a snicker. Shiro turned to her.

«I know what love means. Or so I think.»

Cloud stayed in silence and sat on one of the benches in the hallway. Shiro immediately sat next to him.

«I would really like to know where has Zack gone.» Cloud mumbled between his teeth. «You know, Shiro, that oddball was my best friend. He could drag me anywhere. Once, there was this royal guard. _Loathsome_. Braig was the name. He’d always call me names and sneer at me because I did my best to become a city guard trainee. I was really tiny as a kid, you saw the picture… well, Zack managed to make me score a home run _on his head_.»

Shiro burst into laughter.

«Really?»

«And he kept my ball. Zack gifted me his.»

Cloud stared at the floor.

«No one knows where Zack is now. Some are certain he’s dead… I feel in my bones he’s still somewhere around… that he’s still lost somewhere, fighting to be the hero he dreamed of becoming. That he’ll be here one day, looking at us and asking why the long faces.»

He looked at Shiro.

«Many things happened here. All we can do is to go on and hope.» He allowed himself to smile. «After all, we thought _you_ were lost, and here you are! Our littlest Keyblade warrior!»

He tried his best to look happy. Shiro didn’t have to worry, not for them.

She wasn’t even thirteen… their _littlest Keyblade warrior_ should not even have come close to that conflict.

* * *

The military recruits Sora had joined were mostly boys in their late teens, so Sora, despite his lighter hair, did not stand out too much among them.

At least, though, the attention of the boys was mostly directed on him rather than on Mulan, whose _physical differences_ would have definitely been more dangerous than a different hair color, had they been noticed.

Donald and Goofy, too, were in the encampment, but they kept aside, taking the roles of attendants – after deciding that, to better maintain the world order, they stood out more than Sora, who at the age of fifteen was rather short, but was human enough to pass off as a local.

They were there to help Fa Mulan, the protégé of their old friend Mushu. Her homeland was threatened by an enemy that, according to rumors, was aided by the Heartless, and along with the imperial troops, even old men and boys had been called to arms.

Mulan, an only child, had dressed up as a boy to spare her old, crippled father, but had she been discovered consequences for her would have been worse than losing family.

Sora had decided to stay there: Heartless meant bad news in any case, and probably the army training would have helped him recover faster the strength and abilities he was trying to get back. That was _why_ he was standing in line, a soldier among soldiers, probably the only one really in silence, ready to face any kind of task or chore.

«Soldiers!»

Captain Shang marched towards them, staring at the recruits with a disapproving look. He certainly had _not_ forgotten the lunch line incident of the previous day.

Everyone lined up and fell silent.

«You will assemble swiftly and silently every morning.» The captain hung his tunic on a barrel full of sticks, then picked up a bow and a quiver full of arrows. «Anyone who acts otherwise will answer to me.»

He marched in front of everyone again, but one of the soldiers, with an eye permanently blackened, thought it would have been “cool” to mumble behind his back.

_Shang heard him._

«Yao!»

He nocked an arrow, making almost everyone flinch and step backwards, then he aimed high, at the top of a pole that overlooked the whole encampment and probably was over four meters tall. He fired the arrow, that embedded itself on the pole.

«Thank you for volunteering. Retrieve the arrow!»

So, they would have had to climb the pole. That didn’t look to hard, not to Sora at least. He had been climbing trees or literally anything else since he could walk.

The boy was almost grinning when he saw the old man working with Captain Shang – the _imperial advisor_? – carrying towards them a heavy-looking chest. Shang pulled out of it what looked like two thick bronze discs that immediately tied to poor Yao’s wrists.

«This represents discipline, and this represents strength.» He pointed first at one, then at the other. «You need both to reach the arrow.»

One by one, all the soldiers tried to climb the pole with their wrists burdened by the weights. No one seemed to be able to climb higher than their stature without falling to the ground: lifting their _own_ weight was one thing, but the obstacle in that chore was the weight _added_ to the hands, that were supposed to be propelling them higher.

Their arms could not _resist_ the effort.

Dejected, while he faced his own struggle at the pole, Sora realized that his past as a lone fighter would not have helped him there: he still was the smallest boy, and those weights had been made to hinder men bigger than him.

Sora went back to his place after a performance as dreadful as the others’, and while he tried to stretch his muscles like Riku had taught him a lifetime before, he heard Captain Shang saying out loud what he had been thinking.

«We've got a _long_ way to go.»

* * *

Being used to boredom at Castle that Never Was and to the sleepy Twilight Town, for Shiro the restlessness of what they called Hollow Bastion was almost a tiring novelty, but at least she appreciated she never had a moment to get bored.

The inhabitants were mostly busy with the restoration, some actively like Cid, some with magic like Merlin and Aerith, some fighting the Heartless, and others, like Justice Ilyas, reporting the progress or simply trying to remember things as they were, which was their biggest obstacle so far.

The presence of the Heartless made all the able-bodied people carry a weapon, and who couldn’t fight needed an escort to get out of their housing: Shiro had often volunteered to escort Ilyas and baby Finn from their house to Merlin’s, and despite Cid’s security systems she had had to fight _herself_ against some Shadows.

It was one of those evenings, and despite Shiro had not wanted the grown-ups to intervene, after getting escorted home, the justice had immediately phoned Aerith because one of the Shadows had left three deep gashes on the young girl’s leg, and in his opinion Shiro “needed medical attention and he didn’t trust her with going home alone”.

«You told us you could fight, Shiro.» Aerith reproached her after healing her cuts. «What happened?»

Shiro was about to answer… it was _nothing_ , Roxas had told her he had seen much worse… and he had trained her…

«Oh, nothing much. Little one here fought like hell. They just were too many for her.» The justice intervened leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. «Finn and I wouldn’t be here unharmed if hadn’t it been for Shiro… she does need more training, but…»

He sighed. He probably didn’t understand too much of fighting, but it had been kind of his to pick up Shiro in his arm for the last leg until the safety of his yard.

«You know, Shiro, you remind me a lot of my eldest… Finn’s brother.» The man stared at the pictures hanging on the walls. «He seemed to have understood something was very wrong, ten years ago. He had started carrying everywhere the old spade I have in the yard.»

«Yeah, I remember that.» Aerith sighed. «He also found a steel pipe in a junkyard and told me to never get out of the house after sunset without it, after Cloud and Zack were gone.»

It didn’t take a genius to realize it was Saïx they were talking about – Shiro had already recognized his face in the pictures. She would have wanted to tell the justice his eldest was still alive, but _what if it could have harmed him even more_?

«I know I’m not Sora.» Shiro admitted. «But, Aerith, isn’t it true that when you’re stronger than the others you gotta protect them?»

Aerith sat on the couch next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

«That’s what Zack always said.» She gave her a smile. «Just imagine, all the times he sat on this very couch and proudly stated that he was in the city guards so he could become a hero for all the people who would have needed one.»

«So, if I protect you and the others…» Shiro folded her arms. «If I become strong like Zack, or strong like Sora… do you think Zack would be happy if I do like he did?»

Aerith did not answer, but Shiro could swear that, despite her smile, the older girl’s eyes were getting misty.

«You have to do the _right thing_ , Shiro.» She took a breath. «Not for Zack, not for Sora, not even for the Committee. Just the next right thing. But, looking at what you’ve become… yeah, he would be proud.»

* * *

«Insubordinate ruffians! _You men owe me a new pair of slippers_!»

Sora was sneaking in the greenery along with other soldiers, pressing a hand on his face to suppress laughter.

He had not had so much fun ever since he and Riku, after a particularly extenuating fencing practice at school, had decided to reenact the “prowess” of Coach Jecht in the boys’ changing rooms, using a bench as their stage and the lost and found bin to improvise a costume.

In the case of Chi Fu, the bombastic and insolent imperial advisor that was administrating the encampment, it had been even easier to organize the prank: to get washed in the river, the old picklepuss had left on shore slippers and towels, and for Sora it was easy as pie to get them and imitate him in front of his tent mates, mimicking everything from his stride to his high-pitched squeal.

He had the suspicion he had not been fully “himself” during the show, and that something or someone within himself had moved and spoken on his behalf, but it had been fun and the others had laughed, too, and that was all that mattered.

Now all he had to do was to get back to his tent in silence and hope the old pickle did not recognize him: in the dark of the night, it was harder to notice his hair was brown, and he was wet enough that it didn’t spike out like usual.

But the old man was _just in front of him._ With no evidence, though.

«And I do not squeal like a girl…» Chi Fu was venting out, marching towards the tents, brandishing like a mallet one of the two slippers Sora had burst through simply by _wearing them_. (Nothing to say. Sora might have been the shortest in the troop, but as for his shoe size, he had feet as long as the other soldiers’!)

He had almost gotten to the safety of his tent when _something_ stood in the way of both him and the old man. A soldier. On a panda. _A soldier on a panda that had just devoured the broken slipper_.

« _AAAAARGH_!» Chi Fu screamed with a vocal pitch almost impossible for a man of his age. (He _did not_ squeal like a girl, no, really.)

Sora blinked. The soldier on the panda looked familiar to him. Or better, his armor did – it was _his_! Okay, who had just given him a taste of his own medicine?

«Urgent news from the general!» the mysterious soldier commanded. The voice was Mushu’s, probably hidden by the armor, but from the arm that was handing the letter to Chi Fu, despite covered in armor and a glove, a couple white feathers had fallen out. _Donald_?

Chi Fu did not take the letter, but stared at the panda, that continued chewing lazily.

«What's the matter? You've never seen a black and white before?» Mushu’s voice made him look up again.

The old man looked in Donald’s eyes. « _Who are you_?»

«Excuse me? I think the question is, WHO ARE YOU?» While Mushu angrily replied, Donald swatted the advisor with a hand, hitting him in the face with his fingertips. «We're in a _war_ , man! There's no time for stupid questions!»

Sora was grateful for the tall grass hiding him, because in that moment he was laughing so much his sides were getting sore. He had no idea why Mushu had decided to involve Donald and a panda to humiliate Chi Fu that way, but such a sight had been _priceless_.

The advisor ran towards the tents, while the panda and its rider, since Sora was the only eyewitness, vanished on a tree.

«What the hell was that?» Sora approached the trunk and looked up. Donald and Mushu came down, Mushu staring in disgust at Sora’s bare chest.

«Get back your tunic, kiddo. I’ve already seen and bitten enough naked soldiers for today.» Mushu held out the tunic Sora wore during the training and tossed it at him.

«Chi Fu had tried to stop you all from departing,» Donald explain him, helping him getting dressed. «Something like you’re not ready and you won’t stand a chance against the Huns. Mushu used the panda to deliver a reinforcements request.»

«Oh… good.» Sora straightened his tunic and rubbed his neck with a hand.

«Goofy didn’t like our plan.» Donald commented again.

While they were discussing, Chi Fu reached the captain’s tent, announcing the request of reinforcements that Mushu and Donald had forged and delivered.

«Get back that armor and pack your bags, Sora.» Mushu jumped on his shoulder. « _We’re movin’ out!_ »

* * *

Summer was turning into fall, and despite the continuous presence of Heartless and Nobodies, Hollow Bastion looked more and more like the city it had been.

Between Shiro’s shenanigans and the battles at the border of the restoration site, Aerith had her hands full making sure everyone in the city was fine, but she had nothing to complain about: Leon had managed to clear a path to enter the castle and had started clearing the hallways, Yuffie, with some additional help from Cloud, had cleared the old high school from the debris and soon, had they found teachers, school could begin again for the kids, and Sora kept traveling, getting back every now and then and calling them with his ship’s computer whenever he could not drop by and say hello.

He had told them of how he had helped a girl named Mulan to save her country from invaders, met again his old friend the Beast, whom Sora had helped to get back to his senses after a moment of dejection, helped Hercules to vanquish the Hydra that had threatened the Olympus Coliseum, eradicated Maleficent’s thorns from Disney Castle and saved the city of Port Royal from a crew of cursed pirates commanded by the undead captain Hector Barbossa.

After telling them about the pirates of the Caribbean and his new friends Jack (ahem, _Captain_ Jack Sparrow), Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, and after giving a quick look to the ship’s radar, Sora had stated he would get back to the Bastion for a while – there was something he had seen and…

«It’s still not a good idea to me.» Donald commented for the umpteenth time.

«Come on, since Jafar is gone this world has to be safe!» Sora replied, helping Shiro get off the Gummiship. «She does need to meet new people!»

When Sora had seen Agrabah on the radar, he had decided to take that chance, bring back to Merlin some of the pages his book had lost, and take Shiro out for a trip. He had heard how the girl had gotten hurt trying to protect _His Horror_ and was rather sure that some experience outside the borough would have helped her in her fighting abilities.

«It’s hot out here,» Shiro complained giving her jacket a tug. «Roxas told me he’s been here. He says this world has a magical Genie.»

«Roxas met the Genie?» Sora couldn’t say if he was surprised or not: he knew the Genie had left for a worlds’ tour to celebrate being freed, but in some way, he _imagined_ the big blue fellow couldn’t stay away from Aladdin.

«Yeah, and he has a friend named Al who tries to keep the city in order at his best.» Shiro mumbled. «Last year they got quite a nasty sandstorm. It was caused by a Heartless named the Antlion.»

Sora would have happily hit himself. _If_ Shiro had let something like that slip in front of Aerith, he would have collected a fair number of lumps on his head.

«But the Genie hasn’t come back for good. Not yet.» The girl concluded.

It looked like a calm day in Agrabah. Some of the inhabitants of the poorer districts, where Sora remembered Aladdin’s place was, were discussing on how gold had fallen from the sky some hours before. Sora imagined that Aladdin and Carpet could have done something like that, but he could not exactly guess how and what they could have done…

« _Help_! Mayday! Desert robbers!» A voice squawked from one of the alleys. Sora, Donald, Goofy and Shiro turned towards the source of the voice and a heap of blue and red feathers almost hit their faces.

«Uh-oh!» Goofy commented, pointing at the bird. «It’s… uhm, it’s Iago!»

Sora immediately summoned the Keyblade to his hand, and in the corner of his eye he saw Shiro doing the same.

«Wait, you got me all wrong!» Iago flew in front of them, losing a few feathers in the frenzy. «Aladdin… criminals… over there!»

«Why didn’t you say it before?» Sora exclaimed, sprinting towards the alley Iago came from. Half a dozen bandits had surrounded Aladdin between two wooden stands, and despite being armed, the young man had been cornered. Sora stopped in front of them and cleared his throat. «So, you third-rate scoundrels. What about a fairer showdown?» He raised his Keyblade and immediately attacked the closest thug.

«Drop those toys, crooks!» Shiro shouted and attacked the shortest and fattest of them. Her threat almost sounded like Will Turner’s “Aye, avast!” when they had “commandeered” the Dauntless.

With help from Donald and Goofy, who had arrived immediately after them, and Razoul and the Sultan guards, the brigands could only run away by stealing the cart of a chicken breeder… after breaking all of his eggs.

«Hey, Sora!» Aladdin smoothed his clothes and shook his head. «Perfect timing, guys! I should have taken Carpet…»

«Did you see me, Sora? I’ve left that dummy in his breeches…» Shiro was almost jumping on the spot, proud of herself for how she could fight for herself.

«Oh, so you defeated Abis Mal?» Aladdin gave her a nervous grin. «I knew he was an _abysmal_ thief, but letting a kid hand him his butt is low even for him!»

Shiro’s face contorted in a grimace. «I’m no kid. I’m a Keyblade wielder.»

«Hello, Aladdin.» Sora ran a hand through his hair. «This is Shiro, I met her some days ago. She carries a key like me, but she does need some experience.»

«Aren’t you forgetting someone?» A voice squawked over Sora, and something landed on his shoulder. Iago had perched on him, the parrot’s clawed little paws clutching his jacket.

«Uh, thanks for your help, Iago.» Aladdin addressed the bird. «Hadn’t you found Sora…»

« Oh, yeah, of course I saved you, it's my nature.» Iago ruffled his feathers. «I'm always rescuing things! Cats, children…» He flew from Sora to Shiro, who tried to pet him with a finger. «… guys like you… _always rescuing_.»

The “rescue” didn’t prevent Aladdin from doubting Iago anyway: once they got to the palace, he locked him in a cage in the garden and ensured he would ask the Sultan for a fair trial.

The parrot was visibly furious, and he definitely flipped out when Shiro tried to keep him calm with a cracker, but Aladdin immediately led Sora, Donald, Goofy and Shiro away from that zone of the gardens and led them on the other side of the garden pool, where Jasmine was awaiting him.

If their arrival had been a surprise for Aladdin and Jasmine, it was even more when another unexpected guest literally surfed on the pool to join them: the Genie himself, returning from his worlds’ tour, was back in Agrabah, back for good.

«You saw the whole world already?» Aladdin was rather skeptical, even if he was smiling.

Genie turned into four puppets and started singing: « _It’s a small world after all_ …». Sora found himself humming the song. It wasn’t the first time he heard it, maybe at the ice cream parlor near the school – it had definitely something to do with ice cream.

«But Agrabah has something that no other place in the world has!» Genie turned back to his usual appearance. He opened a suitcase and pulled out of it an enormous book bursting with pictures, that pulled out one by one, while the photographs magically enlarged themselves so that everybody could see clearly.

«I parachuted down into the Taj Mahal… I rollerbladed all along the great Great Wall… I even made the famous Leaning Tower fall… but who was with me through it all? _Nobody_!»

One of the photographs fell off the album, without increasing in size, and ended up on the floor near Shiro’s feet.

«That was Hercules! I know him!» Sora pointed at a runner in one of the pictures. «How could you win a race with him? He’s faster than a rocket!»

«It's easy when you're chased by killer bees.» Genie gave an embarrassed giggle. Despite all the pictures he was showing, he looked more than glad to be back.

«And the pyramids I highly recommend…» He pulled out another picture, that portrayed him in pharaoh’s garb in a dark tunnel. «But there is nothing in the world…»

He had showed a mariachi band, a hot air balloon, huge falls and a ship called the Queen Elizabeth 2 when Sora noticed that Shiro had walked away from the group and was sitting on a bench, staring at the picture Genie had dropped. Her head was low and her eyes were full of tears.

«Oh, come on, sweetie, don’t cry now.» Genie approached her and smiled. «It’s not a problem that picture was half ruined, the film got overexposed, it just happens sometimes…»

Shiro looked up and shook her head.

«It’s Roxas…»

Only half the picture was visible, but in the intact part, standing on a heap of rubble, there was a boy, dressed in the same black coat Sora had seen the Organization Nobodies wearing, with short dark blond hair that spiked upwards in some points, blue eyes, a rather confused look, and a Keyblade in his hand.

 _Sora’s_ Keyblade.

«The sand storm… the Antlion…» Shiro sobbed, as the others gathered around her. «Did you meet him?»

«I’ll say. He was a rather funny kid, but he knew his stuff.» Genie sat next to her.

«He was my best friend…» Shiro dried up her tears with a hand.

«Heh, kid. There’s _nothing_ in the worlds quite like a friend.» Genie nudged her on a shoulder. «Wherever they are, it’s _always_ home to you.» He pointed at Aladdin and Jasmine. «When I said Agrabah has something nowhere else has? It’s them. You’re missing your friend, aren’t you?»

Sora embarrassedly rubbed a foot on the ground.

«He _didn’t_ really leave for good. He’s my Nobody, a little like my shadow. He was supposed to get back in here so I could regain my memories.» Sora pointed at his heart.

Genie vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared in a doctor’s garb. «Okay, lemme listen.» He covered his ears with a stethoscope and laid the bell on Sora’s chest. A moment later, he flinched on the spot, like if he had just been hit with a huge hammer.

«What’s in there, boy, a _garage band_?» he burst out.

«Uuuuuhhhh…» Sora crossed his arms behind his head.

«Well, it doesn’t seem to be hurting you, so no prescription for now. As for me, I’ll need a nice aspirin for the headache you gave me!» He conjured a huge pill out of thin air and swallowed it. It was then Shiro started laughing.

«Looks like you lived cooped up for a while, didn’t you, little one?» Genie addressed her in a kind tone, then he started talking like a weird doctor once again. «Mister Sora, I prescribe a lot of fresh air and countless happy memories for this girl, jaaa!» He reverted to his usual look. «And keep the picture, Shiro. You need it more than I do.»

* * *

Axel left the Dark Corridor and found himself on a sunny beach.

A part of him imagined that place as the one he would have wanted to visit along with Roxas, once they would be free…

In a certain sense, he _was_ free, but also alone.

He would fix things… one way or another.

If only Sora could be turned back into a Heartless… well, in that case, he only needed the right leverage.

According to the archives in Saïx’s computer, his best friends, the people who cared about the most in the worlds, were called Riku and _Kairi_ , and they had been his best friends since forever. He had been able to brave an impossible journey for a fourteen-year-old, to become a warrior, to lose his heart, for Riku _and Kairi_.

To Axel’s dismay, Riku _had a bite_. It was technically impossible to capture him and tell the tale – he was as strong as Sora, if not even more, and according to the Organization’s informers he had defeated and captured Roxas on his own.

Why did Sora’s other best friend have to be named _Kairi_?

According to the archives she was the mayor’s daughter… daddy’s little angel. Axel had immediately thought about _his_ Kairi, who had worn his hand-me-downs half of the time and Grandma’s hand-sewn dresses the other half, in that old house that smelled of old lady, looked after sometimes by the neighbors and sometimes by an imbecile big brother who hardly knew what to do…

He knew he did not have a heart, but the thought burned him anyway. That girl had had a chance to live, to grow up and have friends.

His little sister had been captured by a _monster_ while she drew in Ansem’s castle, trying to keep boredom at bay while around her catastrophe was striking. Ax- _Lea_ had seen her for the last time, before everything turned dark, being lifted up by a wrist like a doll by Xehanort, struggling in vain to get her hand free from that steel grip, clutching one of her pencils with her free hand, as if she could have done something with that unlikely weapon.

He had shouted her to run, but _that night she had come to help him_. To try to protect him. As if she could have saved him.

The girl was standing on the shore, her gaze on the horizon. Everything of her was a torture on Axel’s nerves, from her long red hair, to the visibly expensive clothes _. She was alive and tall and happy and his sister wasn’t_.

«Maybe...waiting isn't good enough.» The girl was saying.

«My thoughts exactly! If you have a dream, don't wait. _Act_.»

A voice distracted Kairi from her thoughts.

She immediately turned on the spot, searching for the newcomer.

The stranger wore a black coat, had purple marks on his face and long, slicked back red spiky hair, but something of his voice put immediately Kairi on alert. It was familiar… but why?

«One of life's little rules. Got it memorized?»

Kairi stepped backwards, looking up and down the stranger. He couldn’t be from the Islands; she would have recognized him – and she didn’t even remember seeing him at Traverse Town. He was a _stranger_ , in the most accurate meaning of that word.

Yet she had the feeling it wasn’t the first time she saw him.

«Who are you?»

The stranger looked in her eyes in a challenging way, almost as if he wanted to _chastise her for existing_.

«Axel.»

The name wasn’t familiar with her, at all.

«I happen to be an acquaintance of Sora's. Why don't we go see him?»

Kairi didn’t move. One of the first things Henry had taught and repeated her after taking her in as a child – she had tried calling him Papa for a period, but she had never gotten used to it – was not to trust strangers, even when they offered a favor.

She took a look around herself – she was alone on the coast. She considered the idea of running away or fighting, if that man turned out to be the threat he seemed. It seemed to her she was pulled into her recurring nightmare, the one in which she was in a dark hallway and a voice screamed at her to run.

Then, she always bit her attacker’s hand, and another scream, this time of _pain_ , and then _dark_.

Had _Axel_ been her attacker, the man clutching her wrist in the nightmares?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a bark: an orange-furred bloodhound had arrived from behind her, and stopped between her and Axel.

When four whitish monsters appeared around her, the dog started growling and baring its teeth at the creatures, standing between her and them.

Another pool of shadows opened behind them, becoming a passage, and Kairi heard a whistle. _A way out_! The dog ran to it, turning to Kairi almost as if it was telling her to follow.

«We've got something in common, Kairi. You and I both miss someone we care about.» Axel tried to stop her when she followed the dog. «Hey, I feel like we're friends already.»

A part of her asked herself how much of what the man had just said could be true.

Another repeated her to run, that the stranger could only mean trouble.

«You're not acting very friendly!»

Long ago, someone had told her to run and save herself.

Kairi decided she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We adapted a little a few scenes from the actual movies. Gameplay sometimes warps the plot and it's understandable, but a game is not a story, so we used the movies as source material.
> 
> Also (Beater here) I've made a nod to the Aeneid because I'm an ancient literature nerd - and because the "Kairi" of our pack is too. When Kairi says she shouldn't trust strangers, even when offering favors, it's a quote to the "Timeo et Danaos et dona ferentes" - I fear Greeks, even when they're bringing gifts.  
> Also, notice the cruel irony in that part of the chapter - neither of them actually recognized they're facing their sibling.


	3. 'Ohana Means Family

Axel was _way too predictable_.

He had always been, even when _Lea_ had been a small boy, almost vanishing behind his desk at kindergarten. Ever since he had stated he wanted a baby brother, Isa had seen him sending tons of letters to Santa Claus, to Mr. J. Stork, and to _whoever_ could pay heed to him (probably even Ms. Edith, his grandma) begging for a brother with an abysmal handwriting and a dreadful grammar.

Until that fateful day in seventh grade he had entered the class stomping and sulking, and announced that the baby he had hoped to name Kai was _his sister Kairi_.

When Lea, when Axel, decided to do something, there was very _little_ that could have taken his mind off of it.

Saïx didn’t know if he was supposed to be _relieved_ his old friend was recovering the stubbornness he had lost along with his heart.

He was sure that, had he been able to feel at that moment, he would have only felt _rage_.

«Before I disappear… I have something that I must do.» Axel was saying, dragging a teenage girl by her wrist.

Saïx, concealed by the shadows, almost leaped backwards when he saw her face. _That could not be_ … the girl was _identical_ to the façade No. i. had taken according to the data analysis… or better… to the face _she_ would have had if…

«… I plan to make you help me finish this, _Kairi_.» Axel turned to the girl, his voice as hard and bitter as if he had just swallowed something foul. His face, for whoever knew him, left no chance of having doubts about what he would do, but the girl wouldn’t even flinch.

Axel raised his free hand, and Saïx saw bite marks. _No, it couldn’t be, really_. The scene in front of him could have been one of Terence’s ancient comedies and _would have ended up in tragedy_.

Axel had kidnapped a girl.

The girl’s name was Kairi and she had red hair.

He wanted to do her something to get Roxas back.

The girl had _bitten his hand_!

Saïx had lost the count of all times that Kairi, _Lea’s Kairi_ , had bitten someone’s hands. She had acted like that every time she had felt threatened by something, when she had thrown a tantrum, when someone had tried to hold her back against her will. Way too many times, Ms. Edith and Lea had been called up from the principal because Kairi had bitten a classmate, a teacher or a janitor.

The day everything had happened had been one of them – Kairi had had to spend the rest of the day with her grandma and brother because she had fought with a boy in her class (Bixen-something? That had to be his name…) and the playground bully had ended up needing the school nurse.

Not too many hours later, and Kairi had bitten someone else – _she had bitten Xehanort_ in a vain effort to protect Isa and Lea from him.

It would have been the last time that kid would have bitten someone…

… and yet she was there, different, older, but undeniably her.

And Saïx maybe had changed, but he was _not_ going to let his best friend destroy the only family he had left.

He snapped his fingers.

A Berseker emerged from the folds of the Corridor and pushed Axel aside.

«It ends here now, Axel. Give the Princess to me.» Saïx summoned his Keyblade and marched towards the two.

They would have completed Kingdom Hearts.

And everything would have come back to normal.

* * *

Shiro dismissed her Keyblade and looked around.

The Restoration Committee had cleared more and more zones of the town in the days she had spent there, but the mess that Leon had blamed on the mysterious creature still was there. It was no Heartless, that was for sure, or Cid’s security grid would have fried it up like it did with the dark creatures, and the girl was more than certain the thing was shedding. She had started finding hairs, in a case even in Finn’s toddler bed.

Shiro had tried to ask the kid what had happened, but the toddler’s limited vocabulary could only include a drool and a “doggo!”, and the Justice had seen nothing.

In the meantime, according to people in the streets, both Sora and Cloud were back in town, but she didn’t have the time to say them hi.

«You know, I think this troublemaking monster is just a snipe chase. I wouldn’t be surprised if Leon only gave you this chore to keep you calm and out of trouble.»

Shiro had followed the tracks and hairs of the creature until the postern of the castle when a girl dressed in black with dark hair and brown eyes had caught up with her with a smirk.

It wasn’t the first time Shiro saw her: if she could recall, her name was Tifa and she was an old friend of Aerith’s. Once she had seen her sending a Shadow flying over the bailey with a single kick.

Shiro said nothing and kept looking around, then pulled out of a pocket the blue hairs she had found in the Justice’s house.

«Shiro, that could have been His Honor. He shaved the other day.» Tifa insisted. «Anyway, since you’re here… I’ve heard Cloud is back. You’re sleeping at the Justice’s place like him, aren’t you? Did he stop there?»

«Sora is back too, but I haven’t seen him, either.» Shiro focused on the tracks once more. «And anyway, I’m staying at Aerith’s. His Honor only asks me to keep an eye on Finn every now and then.»

Tifa nodded and walked along with her. She probably hoped to find Cloud on the same path, or maybe the castle was one of the places she hadn’t searched yet.

«Once I put my hands on Cloud, I’ll…» the girl mumbled between her teeth. «Does he really think he can vanish like that only because of ghosts he won’t even mention? It’s just like when he didn’t want to play baseball no matter how good he was because his mom couldn’t afford the gear!»

«How do you play baseball again?» Shiro shrugged. «Cloud once mentioned a home run…?»

«It’s… long to explain. Maybe when school reopens, I might coach a team. In high school, Cloud was our MVP… most valuable player, that is. Someone said it had been _him_ who had blinded old Braig’s right eye with a ball, when he was thirteen, but that cannot be… a nanshiki ball can’t hurt that much, and Aerith mentioned me the guard only got a lump. But it happened in that very period… and some days later, Lord Ansem’s guards found _you_ in the square.»

«Braig? You mean Xigbar, right?» Shiro did not recognize the anagram immediately, but her conscience reminded her of it. They seemed to be a lot quieter lately, but sometimes they just remembered they existed. «Do you remember how it happened?»

«I didn’t leave the diamond, but Cloud got sick that day, his nerves got the best of him. His best friend Zack, or he would be, they met that day, took him for a walk and made him hit the ball again in the main square. Looks like Braig was passing nearby and got hit by the falling ball. Two classmates of Zack’s were trying to find the ball and Braig found _them_.»

«So that’s how they met… and then you found me.» Shiro remembered that Saïx, before The Accident happened, had tried to tell her a similar story, but she hadn’t heard any stories from him since she was nine. «I wonder if Cloud might be looking for the Wharf Rat at this point. I bet he could know what happened to Zack… and why he disappeared without a trace!»

Tifa shook her head. They were in the hallways now, a sort of dark maze in which some of the walls had caved in. The mortar that someone had spilled near the entrance had been stepped on by several people, and when Shiro lit the flashlight she carried in her pocket, footprints of several feet, paws, and shoes appeared white against the dark grey floor tiles.

«It’s Sephiroth he’s looking for… the former captain of the city guards.» Tifa answered. «Cloud told me that before the Bastion fell, Sephiroth went crazy. He and Zack survived by the skin of their teeth trying to hold him back… and now I’m afraid Cloud could risk his life again.»

«Sephiroth… hm.» Shiro examined the footprints. She recognized Sora’s shoes in the mayhem, and Donald’s webbed feet… and stubby, four-digited paws that didn’t look like any citizen or Heartless. «You gotta trust him, Cloud is strong. He does save people, doesn’t he? And I don’t think Aerith would let him roam if she didn’t trust him. I wish _so much_ I could go looking for the others like Sora is doing and instead I’m asked to do this and to train…»

«I know Cloud _is_ strong, but…» Tifa clenched her eyes shut and sighed as she kept walking, with her right hand always on the wall.

«You’ll see. He won’t end up in trouble.» Shiro stopped Tifa touching her wrist and smiled. «As I told ‘Possum, my friends are the best!»

«Who’s Possum?»

«Finn… Cloud calls him like that, he says he’s stinky and clingy. I usually tell Finn stories when he’s upset, and I can’t always tell him about Axel and Saïx.»

The strange footprints led to a hallway on the left, but Tifa wouldn’t let go the right side of the wall. Shiro noticed that Sora and Donald’s footsteps went her way, just like longer ones that probably belonged to Goofy.

Shiro pointed the flashlight to the strange footprints and smiled at Tifa.

«Do you still think the hooligan monster has been invented by Leon?» She took the left hallway, then waved to the older girl. «Say hi to Sora from me!»

She walked in the dark hallway, pointing the flashlight in front of herself. Oh, Leon would have been _so happy_ about her… maybe he would have let her fight the Heartless along with the others…

At a point, the footprints completely vanished… as if their owner had gone. _What… how could that be possible_? Could their owner fly?

“ _Shiro, Keyblade_.” Her conscience suggested her. “ _Whatever it is, it’s not too far. And if you keep the light on, it’ll see you._ ”

Shiro turned off the flashlight and pocketed it, then she reached out with her right hand and summoned the Keyblade.

In that moment, she wished Tifa was still with her…

«Run in the dark… eh-eh-eh-eh-eh…» a nasal, almost animalistic voice was mumbling just above her. « _Run in the dark…_ he’s been here…»

«What?» Shiro span on the spot, trying to look around. «Who are you? _Show yourself_!»

It was no Heartless. The Heartless didn’t speak. And she would have recognized the voice of an upper Nobody, but that wasn’t at all.

She heard the noise of some kind of suction cup being pulled, and something fell on top of her, sending her to the floor. Soft paws tackled her shoulders, and something humid and slick rubbed her face.

«TERRA! TERRA!» The same voice as before screamed in her ears.

Shiro tried to stand, but she couldn’t struggle out of that creature’s hug. Wait a moment, _hug_? And it had just said…?

«What are you… did you just say _Terra_?»

The thing let her go, and Shiro took the chance to point the flashlight at it.

In front of her stood a sort of blue-grayish creature, definitely fluffy, with huge ears and eyes black as coal. It had a large mouth, a nose so big and round it looked like a squished ball, four paws, a hint of a tail, dark splotches on its back and despite it all… looked _cute_.

If Finn had really thought it had been a dog, now Shiro could understand _why_.

«Terra? Friend?» The creature babbled again. It absent-mindedly started picking boogers with its tongue.

«Do you know Terra? Have you seen him?» She crouched to the thing’s level, then she took the Wayfinder from her pocket. «Did he have one of these?»

The monster stared at the Wayfinder as if it had been some kind of treasure.

«Been here. Can smell. _Terra_.» He snatched the stained-glass star, but it (he?) kept in his paw cautiously, as if he feared he could break it, then he gave it a sniff and handed it back to Shiro. «You’re his ‘ohana?»

«My… name is Shiro.» The girl didn’t understand. «Terra is my Dad.»

«’Ohana, yeah. Means _family_.» The thing nodded. «Like _‘Possum_ and _Your Horror_.» He uncovered in a smile two rows of sharp teeth, then he reached out again with a forepaw. «My name is Stitch!»

«She just won't give up…»

There wasn’t much to do while Tifa turned the room upside down while searching for whoever she was after – she had started throwing and smashing objects, and Sora didn’t think it would have been a good idea to stand in her way, at least not to get hurt.

«And neither will we!» Donald suggested, slipping inside the room despite the mayhem.

Meanwhile, the girl had taken the Xehanort man’s portrait (Shiro had _said_ it wasn’t Ansem at Yen Sid’s) and pulled it down as if it was light as a poster, revealing some faded writings on the wall, but judging by the wrath on her face, she would have probably liked to punch a hole through it.

The sound of someone walking in the hallway made everyone turn, and Tifa murmured: «Oh, by the way, Shiro is in the castle.»

A creature covered in blueish fur zoomed across the room, mumbling something that sounded a lot like: «he’s been here, been here…», then it eyed the portrait laying against the wall, its eyes grew big as saucepans, and it almost threw itself on it shouting: «TERRAAAAAA!»

It was then Shiro entered the room.

«Stitch, come on boy, I know you’re looking for my Dad, but wait for me!»

« _Stitch_?» Tifa looked from the girl to the creature, who was staring at the picture, then she seemed to realize something and rolled her eyes while pulling a grimace.

«Ahem… I found the hell-raiser!» Shiro shrugged and smirked, then she turned serious when she saw the portrait.

«Hey, Shiro!» Sora approached her and had to hold back the instinct to hug her. The man in the picture – Xehanort the imposter – had not deceived only her. And they had a password to recover to help Tron regain his power on the computer. «Uhm, it’s… complicated. But we could use your help.»

«What’s the matter?» Shiro stood beside Sora, and examined the portrait and the writings they had found on the wall behind it.

«Leon found Ansem’s computer… the main computer of the castle.» Goofy started explaining. «There could be surveys of the city, recordings on how it fell…»

«Terra’s been here! _Terra_!» Stitch shouted again.

«He seems to have sniffed him. And he _did_ know Dad.» Shiro mumbled, without looking away from the writings. It was _clearly_ Tron’s dataspace, Sora thought, but the clues ended there. And there was even more the need to solve the riddle, especially now Shiro’s new friend seemed to have sniffed something fishy. If he had really smelled Shiro’s old man in that place, then the cameras of the security systems could have seen him and filmed him.

They had the solution to one of the mysteries within their reach… _if only_ they could get to the key.

«The operative system is called DTD.» Sora pointed at three faded words on the wall. « _Door To Darkness._ This drawing…»

«Say, fellas, did somebody mention the Door To Darkness?» A diminutive-sized figure covered in a black coat stopped in the doorway.

A _familiar_ figure.

Shiro mumbled: «who was…?» but Sora, Donald and Goofy immediately recognized King Mickey – Donald and Goofy hardly left him the time to close the door after himself and take off the hood before they tackled him in a group hug.

«You mentioned the Door To Darkness?» the King asked them as soon as they let go.

«Do they always do that?» Shiro asked Sora, slightly red and rubbing her neck with a hand.

«No clue, it’s the first time I see them do it.» Sora gave her an embarrassed grin. «Your Majesty, we’re looking for a password.»

«I guess… you mean, like, a code?» Mickey asked him in return. He looked puzzled, but judging by his cheerful face he seemed to have understood something. «Well, the Door To Darkness… it can only be opened by the Seven Princesses!»

«Do we know their names?» Shiro asked the people in the room.

Sora started counting on his fingers. «Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Alice, Jasmine, Belle and Kairi.» He hinted at a smile. «Let’s get back to Tron, we can unlock everything!»

Shiro gave the picture and the writings another look, then she took Sora’s hand and pulled him to the corridor.

«Let’s not waste another minute!»

«Shiro, _wait_.» Mickey gestured her to stop. «I think we may not have the full picture here.»

«Say what?» Sora did not understand, but it had to be important, judging by the King’s voice.

«You three go. I'll see ya when you get back.» The King reassured them with a smile. «This is between Shiro and I, for now.»

Sora wheeled around and vanished in the hallway along with Donald and Goofy, leaving Mickey and Shiro alone with Stitch and the woman in black.

«It’s not the first time I come here.» Mickey started pacing back and forth, trying not to step on the broken glass on the floor. «The imposter posing as Lord Ansem the Wise was _actually_ his student, Xehanort. Ya with me, Shiro?»

Shiro nodded in approval, but Stitch, sitting at the bottom of the portrait, mumbled «Terra!», pawing at the frame.

«DiZ _did_ call him Xehanort, Stitch.» the girl replied to the creature.

« _Terraaaaaaaaa…_ » Stitch hit the frame again. «Outta brown!»

«Aerith’s boyfriend, Zack, did know a Terra.» Tifa, who had stayed in silence looking around until that moment, intervened in the conversation. Mickey would have wanted to help, but he didn’t really remember what Terra looked like – only that he was tall, broad-shouldered and his hair was messy and brown. He had only seen him once, briefly, just outside Yen Sid’s tower, and he could not say he remembered well his face.

«Zack knew Dad!?» Shiro was deep in thought. «Stitch, what does outta brown mean?» She seemed determined to solve that mystery as much as Mickey was, but she couldn’t remember much of her own father – she had been hardly older than one when he had disappeared, after all.

«Terra brown.» Stitch walked to the middle of the room. «No grey, _yuck_. Terra _brown_.»

«I guess he means he remembers Terra having brown hair. And he’s quite right, Terra _is_ brown-haired.» Mickey took a hand to his chin. «It’d match the description Aqua and Master Yen Sid gave me. But… Stitch, are you sure you recognize his face, apart from the hair color?»

Stitch’s big head bobbled like a toy. «IH. _Terra_.»

«He _almost_ mistook me for him. By the smell. And if Stitch _does_ remember his face… and he’s sure it was him… it would make sense.» Shiro pointed at the picture. «Aerith says I grew up here, in the castle. He might have taken me here.»

«There were rumors in town. About a man and a toddler, found in the square with visible signs of a fight.» Tifa told them. «We’d call it the Cursed Story at school… whoever knew too much about it, and tried to _solve it_ , ended up _gone_. The city guards went first. The only one who probably stuck his nose into it and is still around to tell the tale…» The girl smirked. «Well, it’s _Cloud_.»

She walked towards the door and got out in the maze of hallways.

From the other corridor, the one which led to the computer, there was the sound of footsteps and Leon came back in.

«Sora’s back! We have access to the computer!» He announced.

«Great! If something has answers, it’s gotta be the computer!» Mickey commented happily. «Come on, Shiro, we might be about to solve this mystery!»

They found Sora standing between Donald and Goofy in front of the screen, visibly puzzled. He was clearly no expert of complex technology, but then again, Shiro had never seen computers so big before – not even Saïx’s, at the Castle that Never Was, could match it.

«… Hey, these things take time, okay?» Sora was reproaching Donald, who was visibly impatient.

«I think it wants to know what we wanna know.» Goofy commented while Shiro and the King approached the computer.

«Riku and Kairi…!» Sora murmured, thoughtfully… then he shook his head. «That would be too good, huh?»

«This computer is more than ten years old. I doubt it could know their whereabouts.» Mickey confirmed Sora’s doubts. « _But_ Kairi might have lived here once. Riku mentioned me she didn’t always live at the Islands like you two.»

«Dad. Terra.» Shiro suggested, almost without thinking.

«Terra?» Sora asked her. «Do you think it could know about your father?»

«He disappeared eleven years ago. If this computer has something to do with the Door to Darkness…» Without waiting for Sora to type the search, Shiro slipped between him and Goofy and typed it herself.

The monitor was filled by a tab, and started what looked like old security footage. Two boys, of visibly different ages, were talking in what looked like a deserted courtyard. The movie ended, and it started again with the bigger boy talking with Mr. McDuck and Merlin the wizard.

«I knew they’ve been here. This tells us nothing new.» Mickey furrowed his eyebrows. «Tifa’s cursed story, I know how it really went. Aqua and Terra were in a square, in the dead of the night.»

He stayed in silence, as if there was something he could not say. Then he went to Shiro’s side and typed in the search bar: “SAFETY CAMERA MAIN SQUARE”, inserting an interval of dates that went to about eleven years before.

A series of files appeared on the screen, but also an error message.

ATTENTION: DATA CORRUPTED _._

« _Of course_ they were!» Donald burst out, visibly angered by the umpteenth obstacle.

«Tron mentioned a Master Control Program. We managed to recover Tron’s data, but that thing is still in there.» Sora admitted. «The data we want is probably in its hands.»

«Don’t blame yourself, Sora.» Mickey put a hand on his elbow. «As far as we know, it could have been Xehanort himself… or someone working for him… blocking the data. This is actually proof that _someone doesn’t want us to know_ , or it would have been easy to find the recordings.»

He took the commands again and opened the movie right after the corrupted one. Another window opened, showing the square in the middle of the morning, with the pavement and the flower beds damaged from what looked like a huge fight.

«And _this_ explains the version I know.» the King stated. «Only two Keyblade Masters, or someone just as powerful, could break stone and cut down trees like that.»

«I still don’t understand.» Sora pulled a face. «This _Xehanort_ guy looks like another guy named Terra and went by Ansem. So was he actually an imposter more than once? It’s like if… he stole someone’s name and someone else’s face. And now we know Terra was actually here but a movie showing him fighting in the square was removed from the computer.»

He seemed to be about to draw a conclusion, but he didn’t look like he was willing to say the answer out loud. Was he, too, afraid of the cursed story?

Mickey sadly looked down to the floor.

«Yeah… _Xehanort_. Maybe he really did steal someone’s name and someone else’s face.» He reached the conclusion for Sora. «I knew a Xehanort, years ago, but he was no young man. He was a bald, hunched elder, probably close to the end of his days. And he was a Keyblade Master, and they can…»

He had no time to answer: a boom echoed from outside, and the castle was shaken by tremors.

«… we’re under attack!»

Mickey ran to the doorway that led outside, then once he got there, he turned slightly his head.

«Sora, go look for Riku and Kairi! Shiro, run to safety!»

«What?» Sora burst out, vexed, but Shiro would have protested herself, too.

 _Run to safety_. She remembered what Tifa had told her, about the vandal of the Bastion being barely an invention of Leon’s to keep her calm and busy. _Stitch_ had turned out to be real, but Shiro had her doubts about him being as mischievous as she had been told.

Now _that_. Or how Yen Sid, after her showing her own Keyblade, had not done much for her apart from leaving her in a city and keeping her in training. Now the city was in danger, and she had been told to _run to fudging safety_.

Both her and Sora ran behind Donald and Goofy, outside the castle, through the restoration zone with Heartless swarming around them. The dark creatures had opened a breech in the walls surrounding the borough and the castle – that had had to be the bang – and luckily the iron gate that protected the city was still intact.

Shiro noticed immediately that Donald and Goofy, who usually stayed by Sora’s side, now they were in front of _her_ , ready to intercept anything that came too close.

«You know, Donald, I’m quite sure Sora needs healing!» Shiro finally found the courage to comment when, some steps away from the gate, she noticed that Donald persisted casting Thundaga on the Armored Knights that came too close to her while Sora had a slight limp and was gritting his teeth as he fought.

«He’ll be fine. You run!» Donald replied, pointing at the gate with his staff. «We’ll cover you!»

«I’ll be fine _too_.» Shiro hissed between her teeth, but she kept running in the direction the duck had pointed her. She would have protested again, and she had a lot of words in her mind to explicate her displeasure to the three, to the King, and even to Leon, but it almost seemed to her that her conscience, who had stayed calm and quiet in those days, now was keeping _her_ calm and quiet.

“ _You have to see reason, Shiro. They don’t want to keep you safe because you’re a kid. There are people who can’t fight at all in town. The Justice, Finn, Mr. McDuck, the children Cloud found. Who will take care of them if all the fighters are outside?_ ” her conscience stated.

«If all fighters are outside, the Heartless won’t pass!» Shiro replied, stopping right in front of the gate.

“ _No one’s invincible, kid. Not Leon, nor Merlin, nor Sora. Let’s get in. Come on, do it for the civilians._ ”

An Armored Knight threw itself towards her, so fast it would have impossible for Shiro to…

… her body moved on its own, without her prompt, and before she noticed she had leaped sideways, dodged the plunge, and responded with a slash that pulverized her attacker.

Then came _pain_. Both her legs and her right arms burst into cramps so painful the girl had to bite her own lip.

“ _Get in, get in, get in!_ ” her conscience exclaimed again, and Shiro took a breath for a moment, then she turned, opened the gate, entered the borough and barred the entryway behind her.

«What the… was that?» she mumbled, laying against the wall. It had never happened to her before – a moment before she had been agile and accurate as she had never been in her life, a moment after it seemed that every muscle she had moved had been pulled almost to its limit.

“ _My bad_.” Her conscience didn’t say anything else. Their tone was the one of someone dying out of shame.

«What do you mean?» Shiro searched her pockets until she found a Potion, then she uncorked and drank it. The pain started waning, enough to walk normally and get away.

“ _I made you do something that was too much for your own strength. And now you’re hurting like after a day of hard training._ ”

Shiro tried asking them something else about what had just happened, but her conscience seemed gone once more, leaving her with more questions than answers.

They had literally _controlled her body_ , because Shiro did not remember _ever_ learning to move like that.

What was more, Shiro understood with a pang of fear, that was evidence that Leon, the King and Donald were damn right. _She wasn’t ready_. Despite all the training with Yuffie and Merlin, she still wasn’t ready to go and fight out there.

She would have wanted to cry. She still was useless despite the Keyblade.

Outside the gates, the battle was raging, and only two of the fighters could have taken out the Heartless once and for all.

This because _she still was useless_.

«Shiro!»

For a moment, she thought she was seeing Saïx and his look of disapproval. She blinked and realized she had been wrong: Justice Ilyas, with his robes askew, had opened the door of his house and was gesturing to her to get inside.

Shiro took a look around and snuck in. With Ilyas closing the door behind her, then stopping to remove his robe in the entryway, she tried a «Hello?» that only found an answer in Finn’s «Gah!». The toddler was standing in a playpen in the living room, surrounded by old-looking toys.

Ilyas sighed, then sat on the couch just next to the little one’s playpen.

«They’re doing it rough out there, aren’t they?» He was hinting at a grin, but Shiro had seen too many fake smiles like that – the justice was _worried_ , and he didn’t want to show it to her.

«I don’t like this…» Shiro sat on the armchair in front of the couch and shrugged. She couldn’t help having a bad feeling about that. «I can only stay here and protect you two, and I don’t even know if I really can…»

Ilyas picked up Finn from the playpen, squeezed him in a hug, and made him sit on his lap.

«When it happened, ten years ago, no one expected the situation to go haywire like it did. I told Finn’s brother myself he had nothing to worry about…»

He sighed.

«I’m afraid he knew much more than I did, that time. With what happened about the usurper and Lord Ansem… Isa was probably trying to _stop it_.»

Shiro stiffened herself. She would have _wanted_ to tell the magistrate his eldest was out there… but how could she explain to him he was on the side of those who had kidnapped her and tried to use her? No, she had to reassure him in another way. The Justice had to know there were Keyblade wielders that were fighting to keep the city safe, that they knew what they were against – also thanks to her.

«This time I’m here and… I know I’m not Sora or Cloud but… no one will harm you or Finn, sir. I do have a Keyblade, that might make me worth something, doesn’t it?»

«Cloud was a kid just like you were, Shiro. Sooner or later…» Ilyas tried to say, but he suddenly stiffened when a pool of darkness appeared in the other corner of the room. Before the Dark Corridor finished forming itself, he sprang to his feet and shoved Finn in Shiro’s arms, then he stood in front of them.

A hooded figure appeared in the room.

« _Quit playing games_ , Shiro.» The Nobody reached out, and Shiro recognized Saïx by his voice. «Come back home and no one will get hurt.»

« _Run_.» Ilyas hissed to Shiro.

«No… you run!» Shiro looked at the magistrate and stood up herself, still clutching Finn in her arms, then she stared at where Saïx’s eyes were hidden by the hood. « _Forget it_!»

Saïx snapped his fingers and a Berseker seized the Justice and trapped him behind his claymore.

«Don’t make me get tough!»

Shiro held Finn tight with an arm and wheeled around, running to the back door. She crossed the backyard, with Finn holding her tight with his little arms and called for his father, as she tried to remember which alleys would lead to Aerith’s or Merlin’s. She didn’t know well the streets on that side of the house… she had almost always taken the front way…

«Pa, pa, pa…» Finn babbled angrily, pointing with his tiny hand to where he had seen his home vanishing.

«Easy there, ‘Possum, I’m right here. Now we’ll go where’s safe.»

The alley they were in was not one that Shiro remembered, and it was eerily quiet, with the echoes of the battle outside the walls that went further and further. Were they winning?

« _Where do you think you’re going?_ »

Saïx appeared from thin air in front of them, removing his hood. Shiro remembered that if there was _someone_ who knew those streets, it had to be him. He had _grown up_ in there.

«Away!» She tried to defy him the best she could. «You won’t take me to the Castle, and you won’t lay a hand on Finn!»

Probably, if things went bad enough, her conscience would have made her put Finn on the ground and would have done _themselves_ the fighting, even if Shiro certainly didn’t look forward to knowing how much pain that could have caused her.

«Do you really think you can do that?» Saïx approached her, mimicking disgust with his scowl. «A few days among Somebodies and you already can dream that big?»

«I _am_ a Somebody!» Shiro held Finn in her left arm and raised her right arm sideways. « _And_ a Keyblade wielder!»

_Help. Someone. Anyone._

Another Corridor opened between Shiro and Saïx, and Axel appeared, with his hood pulled back, a couple bruises on his face, of which one on an eye, and his hair wilder than ever.

«What the HELL ARE YOU DOING?» he yelled at his former friend, raising his chakrams like Shiro had raised her foam bat a few days before to protect Roxas.

«Axel!» Shiro stepped backwards. He was alive. He was there!

«Hi there, ‘Shroom.»

Judging by his face and clothes he had surely seen better days, and there were scabs on one of his hands that looked like something or someone’s bite, but his smile was real.

He was really happy to see her.

Axel turned to Saïx again, this time with a defiant look.

«Look what the cat brought.» Saïx didn’t turn a hair, instead his brows furrowed. «Make her drop the kid, take her to the Castle and I may not _memorize_ what you did in the last weeks.»

Axel snorted.

«The _kid_ , he says.» He stayed silent for a moment, staring at Saïx’s eyes, then he spoke again, this time much louder. «THE KID IS YOUR BROTHER, YOU DIMWIT!»

Almost as if he had read Axel’s cue, or maybe only because former Number VIII was _yelling_ , Finn hid his face against Shiro’s shoulder and started sobbing and crying he wanted his Pa.

Saïx stayed still as a statue, staring at Shiro and the child she was holding, then he summoned a Dark Corridor beneath his feet and vanished.

«I hope Sora can give them a run for their munny, so they won’t bother you anymore.» Axel panted and shook his head. «Demyx is gone. He was supposed to get you and Sora… but I think Sora got him first.»

«Oh…» Shiro needed some time to process the information. Finn was still crying, even if not as loud as before.

Axel looked at the boy and smiled, snorting heavily with his nose.

«I left him on the Justice’s door,» he confessed. «Him and the other kids on the street. I knew Cloud would save them… so I wanted to give them clues we were still around. I didn’t imagine old Ilyas would adopt one of them.»

«Axel, I… don’t wanna go back.» Shiro tried to explain herself the best she could. «But… please stay…»

She tried to think of a way to keep him from leaving.

«You could help us. We could use a new guard, you’re good at fighting…»

Axel stayed still, staring at the point where Saïx had stood, then he turned to Shiro and Finn.

«This is no longer my place, Shiro.»

He looked down.

«I messed up… _again_.»

He opened another Corridor, and then, he, too, was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, who's really this conscience now? A hint: look up about Chekhov's gun, that might tell you something. Or not. Let's just say that I (Beater here) love that trope and love using it, even if I actually didn't like much Chekhov in Theatre History and still can't spell it right. (By the way, Terence is another author I studied. His plays were famous for the instructivity and insight in human matters, and really happy endings)  
> Also, Stitch might be Chekhov's gunman(dog-alien-thing) eventually, but you'll see.
> 
> Also, yeah, Xehanort's plans are revealed earlier because Mickey and Sora Are Totally Not That Idiot, really, Nomura, Retconning is a Bad Beast. With Shiro helping in the communications, having stayed with Riku and DiZ for a couple days, she might just know a thing or two about imposters.
> 
> Run in the darkness!


	4. Something I Need

« _So, if you care to find me, look to the Western sky! As someone told me lately, everyone deserves the chance to fly…_ »

The Broadway bum – or so Luna called him – was hobbling up and down the sidewalk, holding a bottle of cheap alcohol, mumbling a song that was clearly meant for a woman for how out of tune he was.

Prompto rolled his eyes and asked himself how long they would have had to wait before they could go home.

It seemed Strange was waiting for something… _but what_?

* * *

Sora laid on the warm ground, with his eyes fixated on the sky, where puffs of clouds were being scattered by a morning breeze, and started counting to ten to calm himself down.

Organization XIII had Kairi. What Shiro had said about Kingdom Hearts and Xemnas was true – and what was worse, for every Heartless he and Shiro took out with Keyblades, the hearts that got freed ended up right into Xemnas’s hands.

Mickey knew something about Riku – and maybe even Shiro did.

Sora would have rushed straight back to Hollow Bastion after Maleficent had sent them into the Dark Realm to protect them from Saïx, but the exit the mysterious figure had given them had stranded them on a beach Sora did not recognize.

_Or better_ …

He sat up.

He did recognize that beach.

Maybe the sea was slightly different, maybe it was covered in debris from a recent storm, but it reminded to him of the secluded, rocky beach in his dreams, those in which he was sitting on the sea shore, with a golden-haired adult man on his left and a darker-haired small boy on his right.

«Donald… Goofy…» Sora stood up and looked around. «Where are we again?»

«On a _beach_ , duh!» Donald burst out, shaking off sand from his feathers.

«This place looks familiar.» Sora confessed. «As if I’ve already been here.»

«I actually agree, aw-yuck.» Goofy stood next to him and stared at the ocean.

A boy, maybe a few years older than Sora, with black hair, wearing a white shirt and sailor’s trousers, was walking up and down the beach, staring at the waves. There was a big, hairy dog running around at his heels.

The animal looked happy, but the boy’s face was a mask of worry.

«Hello there, boy!» Sora reached out to pet the dog when it approached him. The beast looked rather friendly judging by its behavior – not to say it stood on its hind paws to put its forepaws on Sora’s shoulders and start licking at his face.

«Down, Max.» The boy called back the dog. «He wasn’t bothering you, was he?»

«Not at all.» Sora walked towards the young man. «Nice to meet you, name’s Sora. Donald, Goofy and I are from far away, we think we got lost.»

The boy gave them an embarrassed look. He had to be aware of something they weren’t, that was for sure.

«Ahem… my name is Eric.» He admitted. «According to most people around there I’m the prince of these lands, but I’d rather be known as a good sailor and this furball’s human.»

«Ahem… the pleasure is mine.» Sora shrugged. He didn’t know how to act, whether to turn formal or going on as if he was actually talking to a boy slightly older, mostly because Eric _had said_ he didn’t want to be treated as royalty if he could.

«Is anything wrong, Your Highness?» Goofy didn’t seem to have a problem with that.

«I met… a girl, a few days ago.» Eric sat on one of the rocks emerging from the sand and started playing with a flute. «I think she saved me from a storm. I don’t remember her well… maybe her face, and her voice for sure»

«Are you looking for her?» Sora sat on another rock a few steps away. «I’ve lost my friends. Riku and Kairi. I’m afraid they might be in danger.»

«Sora. _Order_.» Donald elbowed him.

«My guardian is certain I must have dreamed her.» Eric didn’t seem to be paying attention to them. «But it happened. And it happened here, on this beach.»

«I did dream of this place, years ago.» Sora stood up. «Or at least, I think it’s here. But… I have no idea of what that could have meant.»

«Maybe you have friends here.» Eric gave him a shrug and smiled, then he took the flute to his mouth and started playing a slow, almost sad melody.

Sora felt like he had already heard that tune… but not in dreams.

Yeah… _that world felt familiar to him_ , even if he still didn’t know why.

«Give me a boat and oars and I can take a look around. I can look for that girl in your stead. What does she look like?» Sora stretched his arms and shook his head.

«Red hair.» Eric tried to describe. «Long, let down. She has dark green eyes… never seen such a color.»

«Do you remember what she was wearing?» Sora asked, but Eric shook his head. _Ouch_. Clothes could have helped. «How old did she look?»

«She looked in her teens, maybe fifteen or sixteen.»

«… so she’s about my age. Okay.» Sora rubbed his upper lip. «No problem, Eric. I grew up on a sea shore just like you did. I may not know _this_ beach like I’d know my own home, but I can comb through it for sure!»

«Would you really help?» Eric’s face lit up and the boy stood, then he pointed at a cliff. «There’s a boat just over there. Take it. Uhm… but, be careful. Sailors around here tell strange stories. Like, a king under the sea that might create a storm if he’s angry.»

«That’s not a problem at all.» Sora happily marched towards the point the prince had pointed to him. «Negotiating with a king under the sea? Not the strangest thing I did in my life.»

«SORA!» Donald gave him a slight hit on the head, then he looked at Eric and had a nervous giggle. «You gotta forgive him, Your Highness, he can really tell tall tales sometimes.»

It was only when they were in the open sea, when no one else could hear them, that Donald started scolding Sora again.

«It could _really_ be an old wives’ tale as far as we know. That boy just _doesn’t care_ that you bested an undead pirate in a duel or met Santa Claus or defeated the Lord of the Underworld with Hercules’s help!»

«Yeah, but we _did_ negotiate with a King under the sea.» Goofy pointed out while Sora kept rowing.

A molting seagull flew in circles around their heads, until it perched on a rock and started staring at them with a rather idiotic look.

That had to be where it was nested, Sora thought. There were heaps of junk and driftwood on the cliff, some even _inside_ the nest – probably due to the shipwreck Eric had mentioned earlier.

«I don’t get it.» Sora admitted, looking around without stopping rowing. «Eric said he saw a girl. A girl _he doesn’t know_. Yet he’s the prince and as far as I got it, he’s used to traveling too. Yet it’s a while we’ve been rowing and all I see is water.»

«Well, what else did you expect? It’s the _ocean_!» Donald rolled his eyes.

«I don’t know… the King Under the Sea, _maybe_?» Sora replied, then he stopped rowing. He _really_ didn’t get it. Eric seemed sincere when he had mentioned the girl, but the circumstances in which he had met her were unlikely as a needle in a haystack.

And that search could have been something like that, as well.

«The usual Sora.» Donald protested. «Always accepting fool’s errands.»

The gull, that had been staring at a point just behind his island, stared at Sora and Donald with eyes wide as saucepans, and emitted a shriek that sounded horribly like: « _SORA?_ »

Sora stared at the bird, petrified. He had never seen _that_ seagull, that was for sure, but… maybe Roxas had been in that world? Or maybe it was something he had forgotten, or maybe…

Something broke the surface of the water just behind him.

«Sora… is that really you?»

* * *

New York wasn’t Twilight Town, but the sky outside the window seemed almost the same now night was falling. In some way, at twilight, Noctis _always_ felt at home.

«Here we go again,» Ignis protested from the kitchen of their apartment. «Noct, I know it was you!»

«What did you do now?» Luna, sitting next to him at the living room table, stared at Noctis as if she just knew what he had done. On the other side of the table, Prompto snickered.

«I think young Noctis just didn’t eat his greens.» Strange, at the head of the table as guest, covered his smirk with a hand. «Discreet as he may be, I’ve seen him spitting broccoli in napkins all the time.»

«Yeah, the usual Noct.» Gladio stood up and took the dirty cutlery. «No beignets for you, kid.»

Noctis was about to reply when the yellow-crested cockatoo Luna and Ravus had gifted to the boys emitted a loud screech from his perch.

« _KWEH… COOKIE WANT COOKIE_!»

«Shut up, Cookie!» Noctis rolled his eyes. He wished he had never confessed to Luna that he and Prompto adored parrots. They had had to get the most voracious and loquacious bird in all the shop, because ever since Cookie had arrived there, he just kept squawking and squawking to be fed.

That was why they had called him Cookie.

«Come on, boys, he’s not a kid!» Luna commented, and yet her brother had joined the laughter.

«Fine, he’ll have mercy for tonight.» Ignis came back with a tray full of beignets.

«But just because you two are on patrol duty tonight and he’d end up complaining to you all the time,» Gladio pointed out.

«Just how the heck did the four of you survive a year and a half, on the open road, just acting _like that_?» Ravus commented grabbing a pastry. He stuck it in his mouth, started chewing a bit, then he stopped and opened his eyes wide. «Where did you go get them, Louisiana?»

«I made them.» Ignis adjusted his glasses and sat down. «A girl named Tiana showed me the recipe, I think the place we were in was a city named New Orleans.»

«Well, New Orleans _is_ Louisiana.»

«I know but everything just looked older…» Prompto replied. «As if it was about a century ago.»

«It’s not the New Orleans we know, Ravus.» Strange concluded. «It’s in another world. Which reminds me, there’s a reason I wanted to talk to you boys before tonight’s patrol.» He didn’t seem interested at all in the dessert.

Noctis took the chance to seize three or four beignets before Gladio and Ignis changed their minds.

«And I _do_ owe you a lot of explanations.» The sorcerer sighed. «Same for you two, Luna and Ravus. Do you remember when I mentioned you the Mad Titan and his army vanished from these worlds and found their demise in another dimension? Well, in _that_ dimension, no one of the six of you ever set foot in New York.»

«What?» Luna was the first who jumped to her feet. «That’s not _possible_. I was _born_ here.»

«I won’t give you details. I won’t add the scare to your confusion.» Strange didn’t even flinch. «In the dimension in which Thanos got vanquished… the six of you all were born in the same world, a world named Eos that _doesn’t exist in this dimension_. Now, _something_ or _someone_ is fissuring the worlds’ borders and this is having consequences on dimensions… or you could call them parallel universes… as well… which may have been the reason why you, Prompto, understood immediately you could trust Noctis on your first day of kindergarten, despite you being on the chubby side, wearing glasses, and being an adopted child…»

«Hey! How do you know?» Prompto almost lost balance on his own chair.

«… or that your worst fear, Ignis, is losing your eyesight…» the former surgeon went on. Ignis almost choked on a beignet.

«… and when you, Gladio, found out as a kid that your mother was pregnant again, you immediately knew your future sibling would have been a girl and you had named her Iris even before your parents knew her gender.» Strange finished with a smirk. «Apart from the last, I doubt you disclosed this with anyone. In another universe, these things _happened_ to some of you. Trusting someone, getting wounds, having sisters, you somehow _know_. As for Noctis here…»

Noctis hastily swallowed, the piercing gaze of the sorcerer right on him. For the way he was staring at him, he was probably about to blurt out something _big_. Like, the way his heart had started beating when Luna had been introduced to him. Or the _several_ nights he had had night terrors, ending with him getting repeatedly stabbed, and then Dad woke him up and hugged him and he wept and wept on his shoulder. Or maybe…

«You have an old great-uncle who lives at your family home at Sunset Terrace.» Strange shrugged. «He can’t stand saying your name, you can’t stand saying his.»

Noctis sighed in relief, slouching against the backrest. _Was that all_?

The Old Guy was fine, after all.

«I’m under the impression that what’s causing the Heartless increase might undermine the dimension stability.» Strange explained. «But from our position we’re too far to intervene. But someone we know might be just close enough. Prompto, you said you have a brother whom you’re writing to, didn’t you?»

«Yeah… Pence. Why?»

«We’ve found this in Manhattan waters.» Ravus pulled a glass bottle from a bag. Inside it there was a rolled-up piece of paper, not too tight not to recognize Pence’s handwriting.

Prompto took the bottle and uncorked it, giving the glass a couple taps to make it drop the scroll. He put the bottle away and opened the letter.

_Dear Prompto,_

_I hope this letter can get to you somehow. A girl came here from another world. Kairi’s her name, and she suggested me to try tossing this to sea so it could reach you._

_I’d have a LOT of things to tell you. Now Ignis isn’t working at the ice cream place anymore a youth called Comet took his place several days after you left. They’re quite the character, but we don’t miss Iggy WORKING THERE_ , _that’s for sure. They said they’re going to leave the job, but they wanna open a bar in town, so I don’t think it’s going to be a real goodbye._

_Then there’s Sora. He’s a boy who just happened to pass through in town, but Hayner, Olette, and I felt him quite close, as if he already was our friend. A little like you and Noctis I guess._

_Kairi got kidnapped by a clown in a black coat. The others and I are trying to find out where they could have taken her, but our conjectures get more and more unlikely as we think about ‘em._

_Do you think another Twilight Town could exist? That someone might have copied it?_

_Love you. Please come back soon._

_Pence_

«Copying _Twilight Town_?» Gladio’s jaw fell. «How can that be…?»

«Pence would never write such a thing if he wasn’t sure of what he’s thinking.» Prompto closed the letter. «And he’d never toss a letter to the sea if he wasn’t convinced there’s a chance it could arrive to me. This is the first time he’s _answering_ , Gladio.»

«I’ve seen a lot of things in my life I would have dismissed as impossible or absurd.» Strange pressed the bridge of his nose. «Prompto, write back to your brother. Tell him to do nothing reckless… and to try to understand how much of this can be real. If there’s another Twilight town, there’s a way in.»

Noctis closed his eyes and covered them with a hand. Why didn’t he let them come home?

Telling Pence and his friends not to do anything reckless was like expecting cuddles from a freaking crocodile!

«Okay, Noct, patrol time.» Luna tugged him up by a sleeve to make him stand up. «Master, I think that’s quite enough for tonight. You’ve already terrorized them.»

She gave a look to Prompto.

«Do write to your brother. He’ll be happy to know his letter reached you.» She gave him a smile. «Let’s go, Noctis.»

Noctis grabbed his jacket and hat from the coat rack behind the door, put them on hastily, and followed Luna outside.

Like every time he found himself alone with her, he felt his ears growing warm, and felt grateful for the cheap baseball cap and for not cutting his hair too much. Strange had organized turns patrolling Manhattan, and he and Luna _always_ ended up doing them together.

«Tell me again, how did you and your brother end up working for a sorcerer?» Noctis stuck his hand in his pockets so he wouldn’t make a fool of himself gesticulating like a little kid.

«When we were kids, an army of monsters attacked the city. They arrived to where we used to live.» Luna looked down. It didn’t sound like a nice story to tell, judging by her voice. «Ravus and I lived alone with our mother, and… well, you’ve seen his scars. He had tried to drag our mother away. We were taken to the hospital where Strange used to work as a surgeon. He could have saved his arm, but he wouldn’t… and when he found out I had started studying medicine at college… he came for me. But he no longer was the man who wouldn’t fix my brother. He had changed somehow, both on the outside and on the inside. He told me he had seen something in me, in my past and in my future.»

She stopped in the middle of the park. An enormous circular fountain, limited by descending steps, was surrounded by adults and children minding their own business.

«When the Heartless came, I thought it would have been the Chitauri once again. That we would have lost something else. And if what Stephen says is true, there will be a lot to do to get things fixed.» Luna turned to Noctis. «Seems like nothing matters anymore… college, the Mystical Arts, not even the Avengers can really help…»

«Well, Prompto and I _dropped out_ to come here.» Noctis shrugged. «I would have asked the Old Guy to wait for one more year, for us to graduate, but he wouldn’t hear it. He’s an oddball, like your Doctor Strange. He isn’t really my great-uncle, he’s like my great-great uncle twice removed, _maybe_. And he lives in the family villa. I should just call him Ardyn, I suppose, but every time I say his name, I get antsy.» He stopped when he noticed Luna, too, had had a start. He almost started laughing… _her, too_? «… but he’s not too happy either about saying _my_ name. Instead of Noctis or Noct he calls me _nephew_ or _boy_.»

He sighed.

«Still, I think I’d blow a gasket if he called me Noct.»

Not too far from them, two street musicians had pulled out a guitar and a keyboard, attached their instruments to a power unit, and started playing.

«So… this is it. It’s happening in Twilight Town.» Noctis decided to change the topic of the conversation. «Why don’t you come with us when we get there?»

The way Strange always tried to keep them close, the enigmatic way in which he had explained the various universes and how whatever had made them unstable had given them memories that really weren’t theirs, the parrot, how the seats had been assigned that evening… it all was so _confused_ and yet all of those events – ever since Strange had literally dragged them away from San Fransokyo, had asked Luna to find them lodgings, and as days went by tried and tried to keep Noctis and Luna as much as possible together and alone…

… not that Noctis despised the idea, despite being three or four years older than him, Luna was a nice girl, one of the best fighters he knew, she had an amazing mind and notwithstanding all that had happened to her, she still was an incredibly sweet person…

« _I had a dream the other night, ‘bout how we only get one life… it woke me up right after two, stayed awake and stared at you, so I wouldn’t lose my mind…_ » one of the two musicians had started singing while the other was pressing the piano keys.

Luna snorted, looking at them. Noctis was quite certain he had heard her hissing “ _Strange_ …”, then she looked at him.

«If you’re asking yourself why all this conversation and all this situation might sound and look definitely like a PG-13 romantic comedy, you’re right and someone might be pulling strings.»

«What?» Noctis seemed to have understood what Luna meant, but the question felt natural to him.

« _You’ve got something I need, in this world full of people there’s one killing me_ …»

Luna looked at him, covered her mouth with a hand and started laughing.

« _… and if we only die once, I wanna die with you_ …»

And in that moment Noctis realized he was definitely in trouble.

Or better… _he was in love_.

* * *

«So, let’s put the pieces together. Was it _you_ who saved prince Eric from drowning?» Sora pulled the oars in the boat and leaned on one side, trying to stay on Ariel’s level. «Ha! I wasn’t too wrong when I said maybe I had friends here.» He forced himself to laugh a little. He _still_ was worried about Riku and Kairi, but he would have never denied he was feeling better for seeing a friendly face.

«Can you help me see him again?» Ariel grabbed the edge of the boat and pulled herself up.

«Okay, okay, but don’t capsize the boat!» Sora chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.

Donald laughed.

«As if you had to worry about that.» He squawked. «Your clothes may not be the same, but the magic inside them is. We just landed on land rather than on water.»

«Sora?» Sebastian the crab emerged from the sea. « _Dat_ Sora? Oh, thank goodness!» he grabbed with his claws a piece of rope dangling in the water and heaved himself up. «Looks like Ursula is behaving ever since you helped us banish her, but no one of us wants to count our fry before dey hatch.»

He looked at Sora from his spiky hair to his big shoes.

«So dat’s what you really look like. What brings you three into de sea?»

«We got stranded, aw-yuk.» Goofy commented. «And we can’t get home until we have a way to tell everyone where we are.»

Sebastian clicked one of his claws.

«Well, since you’re here… we got us a concert very soon. Why don't you sing in my musical extravaganza? We needed three more boy voices.»

Sora picked up a rope from the bottom of the boat and tied it to the cliff to prevent the boat from being taken away by the tide.

«That’s fine. Riku, Kairi and I were in the school choir in junior high.»

«Uhm… Sora, _your voice broke_.» Donald pointed out.

«Tsk. A _maestro_ like myself will fix it before you can say pentagram!» Sebastian dove back into water. «And when a kid’s a great soprano he’ll make a fine tenor when he’s big! Come on now, will ya join us at de palace?»

Sora bit his lip. Probably helping Eric had already made him waste time he could have used to find a way back to Hollow Bastion. Now Sebastian seemed to be rather _determined_ to make him sing in his musical in Atlantica, and Sora couldn’t really understand why. He only knew this would have made them _waste more time_.

Sebastian got back on the boat and took Sora aside.

«Please say yes! Ariel’s been actin’ strange lately. But she might settle down and practice if you're dere, too.»

«Donald, what do I have to do?» Sora stood up in the boat.

«Do what?» The duck wrinkled his beak.

Sora mimicked the gesture of someone doing magic with an imaginary wand. Donald rolled his eyes and facepalmed.

«The magic is _already_ in the clothes! I had to do it last year because _they were your own_!»

_Oh_. Sora stayed for a moment in an embarrassed silence, then he hopped from the boat to the cliff to avoid to capsize it with a dive.

«Uhm, Ariel, is it deep enough or I might hit my head?» he asked. «I’m supposed to be singing when I get down, not screaming in pain.»

«It’s fine.»

«Okay.» Sora swung on his feet. He took a run-up and dove in head first.

For a moment, he stayed underwater like an idiot, holding his breath and wondering why nothing was happening. He decided to keep his head under and wait and… _nothing_. Seeing nothing was happening, the thought of going back up and asking Donald whether something had gone wrong – but no way, that couldn’t have happened, his clothes had already changed shape when he had passed from Halloween Town to Christmas Town, and in Pride Lands he had immediately ended up as a lion upon landing, so…

… _that was probably because he was holding his breath_.

He forced himself to open his mouth and inhale the water, expecting his windpipe to burn and to cough until he threw up, but his breath found no impediment, and he felt, like a year before, his clothes fading away and his lower body being pressed until it changed.

«Good to go.» He shook his head and looked at the surface, waiting for Donald and Goofy to join him.

Not even an hour later, they were in the courtyard of the submerged palace, and, while Ariel picked underwater daisy chains, Sebastian shoved a pack of sheets in Sora’s hands.

«You _can_ read scores, can’t you?» the crab grumbled. «If your friends can’t, read de notes to dem.»

Sora held the sheets and started reading them. They were mostly about the singing, but there was another line showing the accompaniment music.

Yet it was the _lyrics_ he didn’t like. Not at all.

«Sebastian, no offence meant.» He furrowed his eyebrows and did a backflip. «If you think such a song can change Ariel’s mind, well, you’d be beating a dead Chocobo.»

«What’s a Chocobo again?» Sebastian shook his head.

«Never mind.» Sora let the sheets float and folded his arms. «It just seems you wrote all this just to discourage her, and you wrote as many urban legends in this text as I’ve heard about fairies in Hollow Bastion.»

«So what’s your big idea?» the crab scowled at him.

«Another song.» Sora folded his arms behind his head. «But who am I to object? I’m a simple choirboy.» He smirked.

They spent _hours_ in the courtyard, with the crab putting Sora’s patience to the limit with a couple hours of scales and vocal exercise. During the rare breaks, he made him squish his cheeks with his palms, move his jaw and take deep breaths.

Then Sebastian insisted to make everyone rehearse the song for which Sora had rolled his eyes, and at that point Flounder finally gestured Sora and Ariel to swim away for a while.

Exploiting the distraction Sebastian himself had provided them with that silly song, Ariel led Sora to her grotto.

The small shelter was just like Sora remembered: Ariel’s collection was still on the shelves, but there was a statue that seemed to have fallen there from the surface.

«That fell in here several days ago.» Ariel explained stopping near it.

«Looks like him.» Sora immediately commented. Ariel gave a smile.

«What would I pay to stay there beside him.» She stayed there a bit, looking at the statue, then she turned to Sora again. «What about you? Have you seen other worlds? Met other people?»

«I’ve met someone else like me. A little girl.» Sora grinned. «Her name is Shiro, she’s almost thirteen, but I almost believed her to be ten or something. We’re helping her to find her family.»

«What about your friends?» Ariel took a seat on the rocks and gestured to Sora to do the same. Sora swam next to her, but then he sighed.

«Looks like… I’ve lost them.» He grimaced. «I don’t know where Riku is, and looks like Kairi got kidnapped by bad folks. And now we’re stranded here and I don’t know how to call for help…»

«You could ask Daddy for help.» Ariel took a hand to her chin. «If the Keyhole is still here, maybe there is a way to send some kind of signal.»

«Well, I’m here right now, I can help you as well.» Sora stretched out. «So, you said you _love_ this boy. How are you feeling.»

Ariel ran a hand through her hair.

«I feel jellyfish in my stomach every time I think about him. My heart beats hard when I see him… and I can’t get him out of my head.»

«And she also lost her appetite and her sisters noticed.» Flounders intervened swimming around them. «And you know what’s the worst part?»

Sora pressed his hands on the edge of the rock.

« _You can’t tell anyone_.» He gave her an understanding grin. «Eric, too, says his guardian told him he’s a little cuckoo.» He touched his temple with a finger.

«I’m serious. You two should talk. Face to face and awake. If you want me to, I can tell him where you two can meet, I did talk to him after all.»

«Would you really do it?» Ariel literally leaned on him, in a gesture Sora had only seen doing once, when Riku had offered Wakka his help in asking Lulu for a date. Then Ariel pulled back almost immediately, just after finishing the sentence, and took both hands to her head. «Yeah, but what do I tell him? Hello, I saved you from the storm, my father hates you, but I really love you, I can’t reach you but I’d spend my whole life by your side?»

Sora rubbed his neck. «That’s not that hard. You’re thinking too much about it,» he told her. «Explain him everything, just like you’ve explained it to me. My father always says that when you want to build a life together with someone, you don’t just have to love. It’s not just a matter of heartbeat… think of how would it feel if you woke up every morning with him by your side, if it would really make you happy imagining the both of you many years in the future, sitting side by side, remembering when you were kids and you met for the first time… planning your adventure and your lives together…»

_Just like the three of us did before everything went to ruin_ … a thought invaded his mind. He still remembered when Kairi had proposed him to take the raft and go, but he had refused not to leave Riku behind. It had been _their_ plan, his and Kairi’s and Riku’s, and they had to go together… why was he thinking of them in that very moment?

«Wow…» Ariel commented. «That feels so nice. So is that how humans court each other?»

«I don’t think there’s too much of a difference.» Sora shrugged. «I think love stays what it is… just love… no matter where and no matter who.» He sighed. «That’s why I think you have a chance.»

He swam towards the entrance of the grotto to look for Donald and Goofy.

«I’ll see you tomorrow at the gull’s nest. I’ll make sure to take Eric to you somehow!»

They had a _mission_ to clear.

* * *

Prompto finished rubbing the sponge on the last dish and passed it to Ignis, who opened the tap on it. _It was finally over_.

«Remind me to never invite those three to dinner again. We’ve washed more dishes tonight than in the last three weeks.» Gladio threw himself on the couch and seized a book from the table.

«Don’t mention it. Felt like being home once again, sharing the chores with Pence.» Prompto rolled his eyes.

«Talking about Pence. Write that letter. Now.» Ignis reminded Prompto.

«Yessir…» Prompto searched for a pen on the shelves and tore a sheet from a notebook. He sat at the table and chewed on the pen for a while, then he started writing. _Dear Pence_ , he wrote, _I received your letter. Strange must have found a way to summon it here, because one of his two apprentices fished it in the sea off Manhattan’s shore_.

«Hey, boys.» Gladio looked up from the book after several minutes. «Noct. What was up with him today? It’s already fishy he invited Strange and those two here at our place.»

«That was _courtesy_ , Gladio, it wouldn’t be our place if Luna wasn’t so kind to find us lodgings… and big enough for the four of us.» Ignis replied scrubbing at the counters with a rag.

«Fine.» Gladio stretched out on the couch like an oversized black cat. «But as soon as Luna entered here… it was as if he shrank. Did you see his shoulders? And when Strange made them sit next to each other… he was staring at her. All the time.»

«Do you think she might be bothering him or something?» Prompto put the pen down and turned to face his friends. He really hoped it wasn’t like that – Luna was a nice girl, and despite being a little too formal sometimes, a little too academic, he trusted her. She was incredibly different, and yet Prompto considered her almost part of the group.

The fact she had been talking about her two dogs for the whole evening, or that she had gifted them Cookie several days before wasn’t a negligible detail, either.

Prompto was definitely sure he would have not liked it, had it turned out Noctis couldn’t stand her.

Ignis put the rag away and smirked.

«Elementary, Prompto. Noct is totally in love.» He got out of the kitchen with his hands in his pockets.

Silence fell into the apartment. Noctis. _In LOVE?_

In their little group, ever since Prompto and Noctis had started high school, they had been running bets on whoever would have gotten first beyond first base with a girl.

Prompto had done _his best_ to win, trying to court all the time in class the granddaughter of the old railroad engineer (with no hope so far). Gladio had showed a certain interest in the child of two of their teachers, even if no one had been able to say if his attempts had been sincere or he simply had tried not to fail Science after he had refused to dissect a toad. As for Ignis… they had taken the piss out of him after he had spent some time in New Orleans talking to an old, blind voodoo priestess who had claimed to know a way to keep the Heartless at bay… or maybe that just was Ignis learning a new recipe.

«You serious?» Gladio closed the book and almost tossed it away.

«He’s dizzy and dreamy. Check.» Ignis took a chair near Prompto. «Head in the clouds. Check. And, Prompto, don’t tell me you don’t even noticed he’s paying you less attention than usual. And it’s been days you’re no longer raiding on that phone game of yours.»

«It’s no longer fun when you have to pay to win.» Prompto heaved a sigh.

«On Prompto’s side, New York is so full of pigeons it’s hard to notice a couple lovebirds.» Gladio chuckled. «Boys, let’s be serious. Once Noct is back, we sing. Noctis and Luna, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!»

On his perch, Cookie the cockatoo started dancing on the spot, beating his wings and raising his crest. « _Sit… tree… kay, I, en, gee!_ »

Ignis rolled his eyes.

«Gladio, you just forgot we share lodgings with a _talking_ bird. You know he can do this all day, don’t you?»

Some minutes later, the front door opened with a click, and Noctis entered the apartment with an idiotic grin on his face and playing with his hat.

He was _singing_. To himself.

« _You’ve got something I need… in this world full of people there’s one killing me… I know that we’re not the same… but I’m so damn glad that we made it…_ »

He almost ignored his three friends as he threw the jacket on the clothing rack and walked towards his room. He closed the door after himself and kept singing.

Prompto remained for a while in silence, staring at the closed door, then he looked at Ignis and Gladio, who looked as shocked as he was.

«He was _singing_.» Gladio murmured.

«Guys…» Prompto stood up and walked towards the middle of the room. «It’s official. Disaster’s in the air.»

* * *

It had been already several hours and the sun was warming Sora’s clothes and reflecting on the surface of the ocean, and yet on Scuttle’s island, there were only him, his companions, and the gull.

«Ariel is late.» The bird commented, perching on his shoulder. «Maybe before coming up to surface she wants to get pretty with that dinglehopper of hers. You know, _before the date_.»

Sitting on the sand, with his back against the rock, Sora took up his legs to his chests and hugged his knees. He wanted to think the gull was right, but he couldn’t help feeling worried.

The last time his friends had missed a date…

His mind was still _branded_ with the moment Kairi had vanished in his arms, and Riku’s voice, telling him he didn’t fear the darkness, still echoed in his ears.

Donald and Goofy sometimes still went up and down the islet, keeping the boat clean and swatting sand away from the rocks, doing useless stuff to kill time. Sora had noticed that no one of them was talking, and they probably were asking themselves the same question he had been asking himself for hours.

_Something might have gone wrong_.

Probably the best thing they could have done was to dive – just like Sora, a year before, had taken the boat and run to the play island, finding what he had feared and even worse.

He didn’t know if he stayed still and waiting on that piece of rock because he was more afraid that _something_ could have happened, or more hopeful that Ariel was simply taking her time and was late, maybe in silence and secrecy so that her father wouldn’t suspect anything.

If he had gone and looked for her, King Triton might have grown suspicious.

But they _were supposed to be meeting there_.

So why hadn’t she arrived?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't recognize them in the text, the two songs quoted in the chapter are Idina Menzel's "Defying Gravity" and OneRepublic's "Something I Need", which also gave the title to the chapter. The song Sora scowled at was much obviously "Under the Sea".
> 
> Fun Fact: when this story was a mere WhatsApp RPG, the New York scenes were inspired to the Disney movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The idea got eventually scrapped when we wrote the story, but we DID keep a OneRepublic song, not "Secrets" like in that movie, but "Something I Need" because Noctis and Luna could relate to its lyrics... and also because it has the SAME succession of chords as "Stand By Me".


	5. In Love and War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter the story is officially keeping up with the original Italian uploads! Aw-yay, something to celebrate during the lockdown... though, you readers, stay at home, read, give reviews and kudos so you'll spend less time getting bored. We'd like to talk to ya sometimes, you know, to get to know what you like and what you don't.

«SHE'S GOT LEGS, YOU IDIOT! She traded her voice to the sea witch and got legs. _Jeez, man_ …»

«Wha…?» Sora shook his head and opened his eyes. Ariel _had_ arrived, and she was sitting in a shallow while Sebastian and Scuttle bickered.

«Oh, Sora, _you woke up_.» Donald shook some sand away from his clothes. «You dozed off _again_. You’d be able to sleep through a thunderstorm!»

«Well dis is _far worse_ dan dat!» Sebastian pointed a claw at Donald.

«What happened again?» Sora stretched. «I was getting worried here…»

«It all happened right after you left,» Flounder, floating on the surface, intervened. «King Triton destroyed the statue in the grotto. Ariel then went to the sea witch and traded her voice for magic.»

«You just lost the Dummy of the Worlds Award to her, Sora!» Donald gave the two teenagers a reproaching look.

«And…?» Sora deliberately ignored Donald. Before Flounder or Sebastian could answer, Ariel raised three fingers, then pointed at her lips and puckered them.

«Sorry, I don’t get it.» Sora shook his head.

«The prince has to kiss her within three days, or she won’t just lose her voice.» It was Flounder who answered again. «And we just don’t know what to do!»

«I do know!» Sebastian jumped out of water and climbed on the rocks. «I’ll go talk to da King! This madness has to stop before it can begin!»

Sora yelled: «Wait, don’t!» and Ariel raised a hand and opened her mouth, and despite the boy couldn’t read lips as well as Riku, he was certain she had just said the same thing.

«I know the prince, and he’s looking for her. I can take her to him. We still have the boat and _I_ can do the talking. I don’t think Ursula knows we’re here.» Sora explained. «But first we need Ariel to cover up. Humans wear clothes.» He gave his jacket a tug.

«I think I may have something in my nest!» Scuttle the gull triumphally announced, then he vanished between two peaks of his rocks. He emerged immediately after, holding in his wings what looked like a tattered sail. «This is just perfect!»

«Better than naked.» Sora shrugged, regretting a little he had given his old jacket to Shiro. He picked up the sail and raised it with his arms, holding it out for Ariel to take it. «Cover up as much as you can, I’ll see if I can find something to hold it in place.»

Two pieces of rope did the job, along with the sail, to improvise a dress, and despite being visibly nervous, Ariel was relieved when Sora helped her on the small boat.

«Sora, you go.» Goofy helped Sora fetch the oars. «Donald and I will go back to Atlantica. We can look for Ursula and see if we can make her invalidate the contract.»

«Do you think she will?» Sora asked him.

«No, but we can try.» Goofy shook his head.

«Okay. I’ll see you at the beach where we crashed!» Sora waved them goodbye and put the oars in place.

The crossing to the beach was rather short, but it seemed terribly long to Sora because he was the only one talking. He had warned Eric the evening before of having found a friend of his that _could have been_ a match to his description, and he thought he would have recognized her as the one… but Ariel’s aphonia would have been a big problem. He had to explain things, and he didn’t know if the prince believed in magic.

For how he had talked about it, even Atlantica, on the surface, was nothing but an old wives’ and sailors’ tale.

«I really don’t know whether you did the right thing.» Sora confessed, while in front of them the shore was getting close. «We would have found a way. I don’t know how powerful is Donald’s magic, but he can do transformations. And apart from forgetting about healing me when he gotta defend Shiro first, he never really let me down.»

Ariel tried to say something, but she stopped once she realized no one could hear her.

«I wish Riku was here. He can read lips.» Sora told her.

Ariel gave him a questioning look.

«My friend Riku. He’s your age.» Sora smiled and nodded. «Last year he made a deed with a Xehanort guy to see other worlds. I managed to made him see how wrong he was and fixed his mess, but now he’s gone and I don’t know where to find him.»

Ariel gave him a judging look. Sora thought she might have been irritated because of him _explicitly_ comparing her to Riku’s mischief, but the truth was…

« _I miss him like crazy_.» Sora admitted.

They were just a few meters away from the shore when Sora heard Max the sheepdog barking. Ariel withdrew herself on her seat, startled. Sora stopped rowing and held out a hand.

«That’s just a dog,» he explained, trying to keep her calm. «Humans’ best friend. If he wags his tail it means he likes you. And they usually seem to understand immediately which people are good for their human.»

Ariel seemed to relax, and Sora took the chance to pull the oars in, jump in the low water and pull the boat on the sand.

Max immediately rushed to him, without a doubt to get some cuddles.

«Max… quiet, Max!» Eric arrived a few steps behind, ready to hold his dog down if necessary. «Oh, hey there, Sora!»

«Your Hi… ahem, Eric.» Sora grabbed, or better, cuddled the dog, and greeted the boy.

Ariel got off the boat and came forward, almost leaning on Sora for her legs were shaky. Sora noticed that Sebastian was clinging to the sail she was wearing.

«Is she your friend?» Eric asked Sora. «She seems familiar.»

«Yeah, this is Ariel. But…» Sora looked down. Saying Ariel had lost her voice was the last thing he would have wanted to do, but he was the only one who _could_ say it. «Until yesterday she could talk my ears off. And now… she can’t speak at all and what’s worse I could have prevented it and I wasn’t there.»

Almost instinctively, Eric went to Ariel and took her hands. It was good he did, too, because the girl was obviously having difficulty standing.

«What happened?» he asked Sora.

The boy made a bitter grin and shook his head. That was one of _those_ moments he wished he didn’t have to follow a rule about protecting the world order.

«I don’t think you would believe this…»

* * *

«Having fun, aren’t you?» Ravus walked to the couch and sat next to Luna.

The girl was holding her phone. Noctis had just uploaded a picture to the Kingstagram – a selfie in which Cookie the cockatoo had perched on the bill of his hat, and was facing the camera with his feathery butt. On the boy’s hat there was a greenish stain that left no room to imagination, especially considering the caption of the picture was “YOU DIRTY BIRD, YOU”.

«I think the breeder actually gave me the most mischievous cockatoo in Manhattan,» Luna admitted, showing the picture to her brother.

«Well, they had to sell him to _someone_.» Ravus laughed. «Though, I’d call that stain an improvement. That cap looks like what you’d get for free in a bait and tackle shop. And probably it is, too.»

Luna chuckled in turn, then she looked at the picture again. Ravus wasn’t wrong, probably: not looking at the cockatoo’s poo, Noctis’s hat not only had seen better day judging on how worn it was, but it also _did_ look like a freebie from a bait shop.

«You owe him a hat now, sis!» Ravus smirked at her and hit her elbow with his good hand.

«What?» Luna gave her brother an accusing look.

«What?» Ravus shrugged and gave her a playful grin, then he laid down on the backrest and stretched both arms above his head. Luna would have _never_ gotten used to the irregular web of scars on his left arm, for both the wounds he had gotten in the attack and the surgeries he had gone through so his arm could be _saved_. Technically, he was still supposed to wear a brace, but his use of Mystical Arts made that unnecessary.

«I really can’t remember the last time you played innocent. Why now?»

Ravus lowered his arms and got serious.

«I can’t remember the last time I saw my little sister so happy.»

What…? Why did her brother think they weren’t? They were just fine… they had their home, enough to live, to have faith in their future. They were together, she had her studies and they were doing something for their world.

They were f…

«Luna, I am serious. I’ve never seen you growing so fond of someone, if we exclude Umbra and Pryna.» The two dogs, who were dozing in a pile on the couch next to Luna, raised their heads when they heard their names.

«No, you rascals, it isn’t dinnertime yet.» Luna scratched Pryna between her ears. The dog raised her head and started licking her hand. The girl looked for a way to reply to Ravus, but she couldn’t find any.

The boys might have been from another world, but they were the happiest and nicest group Luna had ever gotten involved with, Prompto shared her interest in dogs and birds, and Noctis… well, Luna had definitely noticed how much he could blush when they were in the same room.

«You should invite him out.» Ravus suggested her. «Prince Stinky here. Get him a new hat. Take him out for pizza. Go get an ice cream and sit on a bench. Not what you’d do on patrol, Strange knows the path and might place a cupid or two along the way. If you think you like him and so do you… well, make sure you two are alone in unexpected circumstances.»

«And how can you assure me Strange won’t fill up the place with cupids anyway?» Luna gave him a death stare.

«Easy: _I can’t_.» He admitted. «But you two should really go out for pizza.»

* * *

Mickey opened the door of the sorcerer’s study and let Shiro inside. The child was visibly a bundle of nerves, but probably her intervention was the best hope they had.

After Malefica had spirited Sora away and Riku had opened a Dark Corridor as a way out, they had lost all contacts with Sora, Donald and Goofy.

What was worse, Donald and Goofy’s Gummiship was still where they had left it, in Hollow Bastion. Mickey had spent the last two days patrolling, first Hollow Bastion and then the worlds where he had been watching over Sora from a distance, without finding a single clue.

Then, he had remembered a detail that, during the hours preceding the battle, he had almost overlooked. There was _someone_ who could have found Sora – Yen Sid and Shiro.

Mickey still remembered when, eleven years before, Ventus and Aqua had managed to save him because Yen Sid had scried him using something that had belonged to him. He had thought it would have been impossible to locate Sora that way – the boy carried his own belongings – but the jacket Mickey had seen on Shiro was _familiar_ …

The King didn’t want to hope too much, but Sora had vanished in a way not too different from Aqua… and had he found himself where _she was_ … for Yen Sid, the boy was far too important. He would have moved heaven and earth to get him back.

Had Sora found himself where Aqua was, Mickey would have been allowed to go.

«Has Mickey explained you why we need your help right now?» Yen Sid asked Shiro.

«You need me on a mission, don’t you?» Shiro, who had remained in silence with her hands in her pockets until that moment, answered in a whisper.

«That would be asking too much from you.» Yen Sid ran a hand through his own beard. «It may be true we need your help to locate Sora, but for now all I really need you to do is to lend me your jacket.»

«Oh, the jacket Sora gave me. Okay, right now…» Shiro took off the hoodie and approached the desk, then she dropped it on the wooden surface. Yen Sid raised his arms, then reached out with his hands and stayed focused for a few moments to gather the magical power.

A cloud of smoke appeared over the jacket, spreading as a ring until it showed a rock emerging out of water in a lagoon. The world was lit by a twilight, and Sora was sitting on the rock, looking at a nearby boat, in which a boy was rowing and a girl was sitting.

« _If King Triton finds out what happened, we're in hot water_.» Sora was talking to someone – a crab floating right under the rock? – yeah, that had to be it.

Mickey noticed that Shiro was stifling a chuckle.

« _Nothing is happening… only one day left, and that boy ain't puckered up once!_ » A gull flew over the rock and perched near Sora, visibly frustrated.

«It’s the Realm of Light!» Yen Sid stated, visibly relieved. «Mickey, do you recognize the place?»

«If we have to go by the journals Jiminy left to Leon, that’s supposed to be Atlantica. Sora mentioned a _King Triton_. I had never heard about the surface part of this world, but it has to be there Sora ended up.» Mickey explained, trying to conceal his displeasure. If Sora _was_ in the Realm of Light, the expedition to save Aqua was still a delusion. «He must have thought he’d help someone since he’s there. Typical Sora, he just can’t stay still when there are any problems.»

«Looks like _he is_ the one with problems,» the girl objected.

Mickey stayed silent. He almost felt dirty, too much to speak more; Yen Sid and Shiro would have noticed his disappointment. Probably Shiro would have asked _why_ , and Yen Sid would have _understood_.

It would have taken them five minutes, and Sora, Donald and Goofy would have been back to work… which on a side was good. The Organization was a threat, Riku was the only one able to use Dark Corridors to get to the World That Never was, they couldn’t straight-out attack every Heartless on their path because that would have only been a favor to Xemnas, and _it would have taken at least three of them_ to plan an attack on the Castle That Never Was and come home to tell the tale.

Three of them. With the abilities Sora had regained, _it didn’t matter who_.

«They have mentioned one day, to do what, I do not know.» Yen Sid murmured. «But, if I know the boy, he won’t leave until the matters in that world have been solved for good. Tomorrow, Mickey, you and Shiro will take the Gummiship to that world, and bring Sora back to Hollow Bastion. In the meantime, you both will stay here, and you are both allowed the consultation of my library, within the limits your ranks of Master and student dictate.»

* * *

«Wow. Somebody should find that poor animal and put it out of its misery…» Sora heard Eric commenting as Scuttle, perched on a tree, tried to squawk the _worst_ he could for “a little vocal romantic stimulation”.

In the last two days, the boy had followed Ariel and Eric almost everywhere, mostly because of Eric _insisting_ , but he tried to keep his distance so the two could end up alone enough to go “sitting in a tree”.

It wasn’t easy. He still remembered how long had it taken, in middle school, for his older friend Wakka to get even a little intimate with his classmate Lulu.

Then again Wakka only had his mind on his ball games, on an average day.

«I’m surrounded by amateurs!» Sebastian swam away and vanished under water, then he emerged with a blade of grass in his claw. «Sora, stay ready. If you can make some floating lights with that sword of yours…»

He made gestures all around himself, gathering ducks, crickets and turtles, and moving like the maestro he was.

Sora wondered if Sebastian would make it – it wasn’t his orchestra in Atlantica, but mostly swamp wildlife, some animals were even dryland creatures, and Sebastian had shown himself as rather skeptical about the world above the surface, if the song he had written a couple days before could say something about him.

«First…» the crab began in front of the ducks. «We got to create the _mood_ …»

* * *

«Your brother was very kind to take our turn on patrol along with Ignis. I had never seen New York properly without having to search for Heartless.» Noctis confessed. «What do you do for fun here?»

«Not much, but there’s a pretty good pizzeria at the end of that road, and they have started a musical about the legend of Hercules.» Luna answered. «You know, an old myth of this world. A boy who finds out he descends from deities and tries to be accepted back into his family.»

Noctis stuck his hands in his pockets and kept walking alongside Luna. The patrols were one thing, but now he was out in the streets just for fun, he almost felt _lost_ – even after having been for more than a year far away from home, he was still used to the small, sleepy town where even the movie theater had ended up closing.

«Well… theater sounds good…?»

He shrugged.

«One of these days, though, I want to show you my games. Properly,» he proposed. The evening she and her brother had stayed for dinner, she had “busted” him in his room playing Assassin’s Creed, and it hadn’t been a nice sight until she hadn’t made him notice the presence of important historical figures _of her world_ in the game.

Luna said nothing, but laughed shyly. Noctis lowered his head, missing more than ever his hat. Gladio had sworn he’d take it to the laundromat while he was away, but Noctis doubted the stain would be gone for good.

«Did you leave your hat at home?» Luna almost seemed to be reading his mind.

«No, Gladio took it to the laundry.» Noctis smirked. «Hoping he can actually get it washed. That hat was a gift from my dad, it would suck if I had to throw it away.»

«Good.» Luna smiled, pulled something out of her jacket, and with that _something_ she gave Noctis a light pat on his head. A dark blue streak invaded the upper part of the boy’s field of view. Noctis raised a hand and took the object, and in his hand was _another hat_. A dark blue baseball cap with the logo of the game Luna had seen him playing.

«You shouldn’t…» Noctis shook his head.

«Isn’t _everything permitted_?» The girl laughed.

They had gotten to the road of the theaters, and they were walking in front of one of them.

« _There you see her… sitting there across the way… she don't got a lot to say but there's something about her…_ »

All of a sudden, while they walked in front of the doors, someone started singing – probably it was from a speaker, from inside, or someone rehearsing…

«… _and you don’t know why, but you’re dying to try, you gotta kiss the girl_!»

* * *

The improvised orchestra in the lagoon had started a tune so enchanting Sora almost felt the hair on the back of his neck standing straight, yet Ariel and Eric were still as statues in their little boat.

Sora couldn’t help thinking those two were _hopeless cases_. It was clear as day they liked each other – even old man Grimsby had noticed something – and yet neither of them seemed willing to cover the distance.

Then again, if Sebastian had really meant what he had explained, Eric had to start the kiss… that situation was a mess, and Sora didn’t think Sebastian would have made the effort to make everything perfect if he wasn’t so keen on saving the girl he had eventually grown so fond of.

Sora couldn’t help thinking it would have been nice if a friend had organized something like that for him. The islands were _packed_ with lagoons, boats, and plants forming natural canopies over the water, and it would have been a little adventure, one of their games of a lifetime before, their raft, he, Riku, and Kairi…

When they would have come home… when it would all be over…

Who knew where Riku was… and what had happened to Kairi…

* * *

Luna couldn’t help bursting into laughter. Noctis had spent the last _twenty minutes_ literally _inhaling_ his pizza, save for a few rare moments in which he had told her several dreadful jokes with his mouth full. The girl didn’t know for what kind of reason she wasn’t spitting water out of her nose yet, but Clarence, a classmate of hers who worked there as a delivery guy, had turned to stare at them every time he had crossed the room holding the pizza boxes. The last time he had passed by, he had blinked at her and given her thumbs-up.

Noctis seemed rather oblivious, but apart from the jokes every now and then he was quiet, and maybe focusing on food was his defense… he probably thought Luna had not noticed, but she had definitely seen how much he blushed and went awkward when she was close. And she could definitely rule out fever, she _could recognize that_.

Her classmate reentered the room for the umpteenth time, chuckling a bit when he saw them still sitting at the table and playing the silence game.

«Looks like the boy’s too shy,» Clarence commented shaking his head and shrugging, then he gave a playful pat on Noctis’s shoulder. «Ain’t gonna kiss the girl?»

* * *

Sebastian’s plan seemed to be having success – Ariel and Eric were getting more and more distracted by the music and forgetting their shyness. A school of fish had joined the song, led by Flounder, and now they were sending the boat drifting to a weeping willow and its curtain-like branches.

When the boat was under the tree, Scuttle signaled to Sora, who reluctantly left the rock and leapt to the shore near the tree. The plan was to light up some magical lights outside, but the boy couldn’t keep Riku and Kairi out of his head.

He would have never admitted it in front of Eric and Ariel, but it almost hurt him… he envied them, knowing they had had such a chance, even if it was more like a race against time. And it wasn’t even some abstract feeling anymore, no… his eyes were getting misty, and he felt a lump in his throat that definitely was no cold.

Had they failed, how could he face King Triton and beg him to signal his position in the worlds, in some possible way?

* * *

Despite the people, and the lights, and the embarrass due to all the awkward situations in which they had ended up that evening, Luna could say it had been a pleasant evening, and judging by Noctis’s smile, the boy surely agreed.

They had found a bench on the riverside and they were sitting there, both holding an ice cream cone (Luna had learned not to believe in coincidences, and both Noctis’s favorite flavor and hers was _berries_ , both because it kinda brought memories, no, seriously, Strange’s argument was getting more and more plausible even without a detail like that to prove it…), and Noctis was telling her about when Prompto had managed to convince him, a few months before, to get dressed up as a bird for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Gladio had already told her that story when they had met, but she honestly didn’t care and listened.

«… and there was this girl, the daughter of a sugar baron, or so I heard… she was so _convinced_ I was some kind of prince and she had this _crush_ on me because she believed I was a prince!» Noctis leaned on the backrest. «I really don’t know why she imagined that, but after I reassured her that I definitely am no prince she just hightailed it!»

_Phew_ , Luna found herself thinking. Somehow, though, Noctis was gonna pay for telling the same story for the fifteenth time. Without thinking too much about it, the girl brushed two fingers on her cone and playfully dabbed the ice cream on Noctis’s nose.

«This calls for payback!» The boy stood up and was about to do give her a taste of her own medicine, but something behind Luna made him stop laughing and tense up.

Luna looked over her shoulders… and she had to hold back from laughing. The Broadway bum, the man she and her brother had rescued from the Heartless countless times, was approaching them with a bottle in hand (cider? Where had he gotten it from?) and wobbling as if he was drunk.

« _Sha la la la la la… don't be scared… you got the mood prepared… go on and kiss the girl… sha la la la la la don't stop now don't try to hide it how you want to… kiss the girl…_ » The bum started singing out of tune. Maybe the mood had been prepared before, but now he was definitely risking to ruin it.

The speakers in the theater and Clarence’s meddling in the pizzeria had been bearable… but _him_? He definitely was more intrusive than a speaker or a classmate. On the other hand, putting a track on the speakers of a theater, involving one of her classmates and the man _they had saved several times_ … Strange might have been kept in the dark about their date, but _Ravus had had the idea_.

Noctis had gotten redder than the strawberries in his ice cream, and had started opening and closing his mouth without saying anything, visibly in embarrass. Luna realized she could do only one thing to get out of that awkward situation, and if Noctis couldn’t break that deadlock, she had to.

She approached him, put a hand on his shoulder, and kissed him on the mouth.

* * *

_Run, Kairi! RUN!_

_Let my… ______ GO!_

_Oh look who we…_

Something hard, maybe plastic, bounced on the metallic floor.

Kairi opened her eyes. She was still on the mat, in the cell of the place they had left them, but someone had thrown a flashlight on the floor.

A flashlight?

Without thinking too much about it, the girl picked up the lamp and lit it, the circle of light on the wall somehow made her fear more bearable.

They had not taken the pocket knife she had been carrying ever since darkness had taken the islands, and she had been using it to mark time on the wall, but the beings standing guard seemed to be impervious to any _normal_ weapon. They fed her, there was a corner with a chamber pot and the _things_ looked away every time she went there, but it had been several days since her only world was those walls and those bars.

She almost felt _useless_. She had been training with a sword since forever, since Sora and Riku did, and had kept on doing it after their disappearance, managing to disarm Tidus and Selphie together one of the rare times the other kids weren’t busy living their lives. Yet it wasn’t enough.

Without a _proper_ weapon that wasn’t a training sword or an utility knife, she had been helpless first in front of Axel and then Saïx, and she had not even had the _chance_ to use her sword on them – Henry had told her that she could have looked rather paranoid if she carried a weapon wherever she went.

«As I live and breathe… _look who we have here_.»

A gruff voice broke the silence, and in front of the bars stood a middle-aged man, with the same black coat as Axel and Saïx, an eye covered by a black eyepatch, his face disfigured by large scars, and graying hair that seemed to have been badly cut just recently. In some points, in particular on the left side of his head, he even had bald patches, dotted by some kind of black and grey spots that once had probably been hair.

Someone had tried to set the man on fire, and in all honesty, Kairi could easily guess why.

He looked like some kind of crime lord.

If she ever got out of there, she promised herself she’d shake the hand of the person who had done that. _Maybe it had even been Sora_ …

«I should have known it would be you.» The one-eyed man gave her a sneer. «Eleven years and look at how we’ve changed… _haven’t we?_ »

His only eye almost seemed to look into her soul, to discern something that was out of Kairi’s reach, despite the limited eyesight of the man. The girl would have paid a fair price to make that yellow vulture eye _black_. If only she wasn’t helpless and behind bars…

«Who are you? What do you want from me?» Kairi raised her fists in an attempt of self-defense.

«Calm down, princess!» the one-eyed man raised his arms. «Are you going to bite just like when you were five? No bitey, Kai, you’re a grown-up now.»

During the school year, the kids at the drama club had performed a tragedy about a mad king. A line had remained in Kairi’s mind when she had watched the performance during an assembly, when the king had offered everything he possessed for a horse that could take him to safety, or could give him an advantage during the battle.

Kairi felt a lot like the mad king in that moment. What she would have given for a _sword_ in that very moment.

«Sora already took out a dark madman in the past.» The girl made an effort to stay calm. «He will come here and you guys will regret you didn’t stay in whatever you call a bed.»

«As if!» the old man rolled his only eye. «Sora is _lost_ , princess. No one has seen him in almost three days.»

Something _moved_ in Kairi. Her fingers clenched around a familiar weight, _but how could her sword be there_ if she had left it under her bed at the Islands? The one-eyed madman laughed. Kairi’s gaze fell on her hand.

_There was_ a weapon, but it wasn’t a training sword.

It vaguely resembled the Kingdom Key she had seen in Sora’s hands, at least because of the shapes, but the hilt was rounder and had different colors, a half was the color of sand and the other ocean blue, the shaft shifted from yellow to red, almost as if it was the trunk of some kind of plant, from which, at the extremity, a variety of flowers bloomed.

«Xigbar!»

Before Kairi could even think about using her new weapon on the bars, someone outside called from the hallway. She did not recognize the owner, but then _was Xigbar mr. One-Eye’s name?_

Xigbar turned his head towards whoever had called him.

«Sora has been found!» The stranger kept talking. «He was in Atlantica! Looks like they’ve used the kid to locate him!»

«Well, this changed everything, I suppose.» Xigbar shrugged, then he snapped his fingers. Two whitish things wielding what looked like guns appeared out of nowhere, floating in midair with their weapons pointed on the cell. «Your Prince Charming will be here soon, sweetie, so try not to play the hero with that new _Keyblade_ of yours…»

* * *

The door of the Gummiship opened, and the vessel was invaded by a breeze that carried a smell Shiro had never known in her life.

The ground in front of her was yellow and grainy, _sand_ , just like in Agrabah, and went on for a few meters before ending into _water_. A huge blue expanse that seemed to have no end at all.

It was one of the most beautiful places the girl had seen, and for a moment she forgot they were there to rescue Sora.

«Your Majesty, what place is this?» Shiro turned to King Mickey, who had left the deck and was joining her outside. «Where are we?»

Shiro was sure she saw the King’s ears drooping and his shoulders lowering.

«Is this your first time on a beach?»

Shiro nodded.

«Axel mentioned me a thing or two, but… Father… _Xemnas_ … never let me visit one. Or any other place that wasn’t Twilight Town once or twice for his own business.»

She made a few steps on the sand, staring at the waves.

«He promised we’d go there someday. Axel. A free day.»

The King said nothing, but he walked past her and started looking around.

The beach was the lowest point of a rocky coast, over which a castle overlooked the surroundings along with a town made of houses clinging on the promontory. Judging by the noise, something was bound to have just happened, and the locals were intent on celebrating.

«We could have gone with them!» a familiar voice squawked. _Donald_!

«Nah, I don’t really want to.» Sora’s voice answered him. «I don’t feel like it.»

«Is anything wrong, Sora? Are you tired?» This time it was Goofy who answered.

Mickey turned his head and pointed his finger in a direction. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were sitting on a rock on Shiro’s left, and the teenage boy sure looked sad.

«It’s nothing, just… we managed to help Ariel and Eric… and I thought about Riku and Kairi… where could they be… if we will manage to look for them now we’re lost here…»

Shiro gestured to the King to remain in silence and approached the three from behind, trying to be as quiet as she could despite the sand.

«Hey, Mister Hero, why the long face?» She almost shouted at Sora from behind.

The three turned to her, Donald yelling his usual «WAK!», Goofy almost falling from the rock, and Sora with an expression that would have looked just as good on a cod.

«How did you find us?» Sora was the first who managed to speak.

«Yuk, I think Shiro used your old jacket.» Goofy got off the rock. «The one you gave her. Just like when Ven helped us find the King.»

«You’ll have to tell me this story someday.» Sora furrowed his eyebrows.

«Ha, I saved the day…!» Shiro smiled and placed her fists on her hips, but she couldn’t help wondering whether _that story_ could lead to her finding her family. Could there be, somewhere out there, something that could have belonged to Mom? And why did she have the impression she had her answer just beyond her reach?

«Let’s go, Master Yen Sid is worried.» Mickey gestured towards the Gummiship, and Shiro couldn’t help noticing sadness in his voice.

_I think that’ll be a long tale for another day,_ Conscience suggested her as they walked towards the ramp. _Xemnas is the threat now. When the Organization will no longer be a risk… it’ll be time. Time to rescue your real parents_.

Shiro grabbed the edge of her jacket and clutched it, trying not to feel sad, not to think about crying.

Sora was there again.

They had hope.

It was Sora himself who put a hand on her shoulder as he passed her by, then he stopped in front of her and took her hands. Looking up at him the girl noticed…

… _the older boy had tears in his eyes_.

Had he cried? And if he did, why?

«Shiro…» Sora murmured. « _Thanks_.»

She didn’t think too much about it. She let him go, then stepped forward and squeezed him in a hug.

He might have been the hero in those days, but he had _needed_ her help. And now they were one step ahead, closer and closer to winning that battle and saving the worlds and their loved ones…

… and Sora had said thanks.

Shiro let him go and smiled.

« _You’re welcome_ , Mr. Hero Guy.» He gave him a pat on his arm and walked to her seat. «Now let’s give the bad guys a bad time!»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noctis playing Assassin's Creed is a nod to the fact canon!Noctis IS A FAN (Assassin's Festival DLC confirmed it) and, well, as a fan myself - Beater here - I wanted to include it.  
> Also, kudos if you can recognize the girl he described - we don't put characters just to put 'em, most of them will actually have a meaning.
> 
> Some more fun facts: we got Noctis and Luna's scenes slightly inspired by videos of COVERS of Kiss the Girl. The scenes of having pizza and the ice cream prank actually were "taken" from the music videos of the covers.
> 
> Also, yeah, Xigbar is a jerk, and the vulture comparison has been taken from Poe's novella, and sorry totally not sorry.


	6. Before the Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really hope I could do Kairi justice. She's rather hard to write about, so I had to reread the manga and write her the best I could.
> 
> Careful here: angry characters SWEAR!

«Don't stop moving, or the darkness will overtake you!»

 _At least this time_ , Axel had probably arrived on time to actually do something. He had been observing the Twilight Town kids ever since the Moogles had delivered them a letter written by a Prompto guy who had warned them about a replica Twilight Town and of a possible way to get there.

They had ended up finding a way to contact Sora, and they had succeeded, if Sora had actually ended up finding the Dark Corridor.

Now Sora and his friends were surrounded by Dusks, and they wouldn’t have lasted longer if someone didn’t show them the way out.

«… Axel?» Sora grumbled, but for a moment the Nobody was sure he had seen the shadow of a familiar grin on the teenager’s face.

It was the illusion of a moment, because the boy’s face turned tense once again.

«Shiro told me about you. She says you’re a good man. If what she told me is true… _why_?»

«Kid, I hope you never find out.» Axel tossed his chakrams to the closest enemies, creating an empty area around the four of them.

«Shiro looks _lost_!» Sora’s voice was irritated as he cut down Dusk after Dusk, but Axel almost _recognized_ some tones of that voice. «Why are you doing all of this?»

Axel tried his best to ignore the boy’s questions. _He sounded way too much like Roxas._ That _probably_ was him talking, too. And the lesser Nobodies attacking them just kept coming, more and more… Axel doubtlessly liked it better when they had been on his side. It had never been good, fighting against the odds…

_What else could have they done?_

Sora seemed to be holding his ground, so Axel decided to cover his back. If Roxas was still with him… if he was still listening… _he had to hear_.

«I wanted to see Roxas,» he admitted. « _I miss him_. Him and Shiro as well, I miss them like crazy. I don’t know where we could have gone, nor what we could have done, but… I kidnapped Kairi, but she got away from me. After that, Saïx caught her.»

He stayed in silence for a moment, incinerating a Dusk that had approached Sora too much.

«Kairi’s in the castle dungeon. At my signal, _run_.»

He got in position, ready for what would have been his last attack.

«Sorry for what I did to her.»

A deafening bang thundered at Sora’s back, and despite being _used_ to fighting, the boy let the Keyblade go, closed his eyes and instinctively covered his ears.

A gust of scalding air had started just behind him, sparing him like any friendly fire would have done, but pushing back and incinerating all Dusks around him, Donald and Goofy.

As suddenly as it had started, it ended, and Sora had barely enough time to turn his head to see Axel collapsing to the ground.

His lips were moving, but Sora couldn’t hear what he was saying.

«You’re… fading away?» Sora tried to say, but the buzz filling his ears hardly let him hear his own words.

«… that… happens… put your whole being… attack… know what I mean?» Axel wheezed, but Sora struggled to understand a word every two or three. The Nobody seemed to get it, because he painfully raised an arm and opened a passage, pointing it to Sora.

“ _Axel wait, what are you saying, what are you doing, why did you use a Limit in your conditions_?” Sora could hear another voice, this time _loud and clear_ despite his temporary deafness, and felt his guts heavy with a sadness that wasn’t his own.

«… why?» Sora finally managed to say, even if he felt he wasn’t the only one saying that. He felt his eyes getting misty.

«Couldn’t save… that night…» Axel tried to sit up, but he kept fading, and the effort was probably accelerating his disappearance. «Don’t lose… Kairi. Sora. Don’t…»

He was entirely covered by a black mist, and when it cleared out, Axel was no more.

Sora would have wanted to cry. He _felt_ like crying, but Donald dragged him away by his sleeve and pointed at the passage. Before Sora could cross it, he felt the magician’s healing spell on him, and the buzzing in his ears left for sounds and noise.

«Move!» was the first word Sora heard Donald saying.

The boy didn’t wait to hear it again and crossed the passage, but the voice he had heard before spoke again.

“ _Sora… don’t let this be for nothing._ ”

* * *

Aerith’s home was the only one in the district with hexagonal rooms.

Shiro had lived in her guestroom for weeks, but she had really never noticed that detail until, that morning, Aerith had decided that now things in the borough were fine once again, it was time Shiro learned what was a normal life, and, without further ado, had made her sit at the living room table and started brushing her hair.

«Do you think the Heartless will be gone for good?» Shiro had already heard from Yen Sid that it was not possible for them to vanish forever, but no longer finding them within the walls would mean that children like Finn could have started playing in the streets.

«I don’t know, but we still have our little warrior here, don’t we?» Aerith laughed. «Now Tron’s in charge of the computer again, it should be easier to bring back the Garden just like it used to be. If we managed to recover the map files, I think Merlin would just wave his wand and bring every building back to where they stood!»

«What about the corrupted files?» Shiro had been in the castle with Stitch the previous afternoon (the creature seemed to be _very_ protective with any child, and had the habit to escort her), and they had found Leon and Cid describing with several profanities a problem they had with data they could not recover.

«According to what Tron told us, the dataspace had been copied about thirty years ago from a scholar of another world… Kevin Flynn or something. Cid found his call data and tried to email him, but he received no answer. So now he’s doing a research in other worlds, to make _new_ programs based on pre-existing artificial intelligences. Or something like that, my father knew a thing or two about science, I only know the _words_.» Aerith laughed. «Looks like his eighth and ninth attempt seem to be working. I’m quite sure Cloud is looking forward to that. He doesn’t seem too happy to be living in Justice Ilyas’s guestroom.»

«So they’ll bring everything back?» Shiro gritted her teeth when the brush got stuck in a big tangle. «You mean he’d go back to his home?»

«Yeah. Unless…» Aerith pulled the brush away and gave another stroke, this time lighter and slower. «Cloud lost his mom when the Garden fell. He might not feel like living there again.» Her voice had turned pensive, but after a moment of silence her tone turned the same as usual. «I hope Tifa can make him see reason about the fact he deserves a place to call his own. I say, whatever I tell him falls on deaf ears!»

«I’m sure Tifa will!» To distract herself from the brushing, Shiro focused on the pictures on the walls. She recognized Cloud in a blue uniform in one of the photos, and Lea, Isa, and Zack wearing face paint, and nearby there were Tifa and Leon in the same blue uniform, and Aerith wearing the school hoodie over her dress. She felt a pang of sadness, remembering she didn’t have any photos of Roxas and Axel, let alone her own family. «Just like I’ll do with my friends once my Mom gets home!» She gave another look to the picture, then she turned to Aerith. «I do miss them…»

Aerith, who had stopped brushing while Shiro was looking back, waited for her to turn then gave another brushstroke.

«Until then, I hope your mom can take over brushing your hair. It’s not a problem for me…»

“ _But for you, I’m quite sure it is, Shiro_ …” her conscience tried to finish the sentence in a funny way.

«… but you deserve family. No child should have to grow up away from their family, or without the attention they need to grow up properly.»

«Would she do it?» Shiro turned again, making Aerith stop one more time. «What if she starts going everywhere just like Sora?»

Aerith looked up to the ceiling and stuffed the brush in a pocket of her dress.

«Not even the stuff Sora’s doing is normal, Shiro.» She walked to the wall, until she could reach at the picture and point at it. «This was us. Do you know how old were Lea and Isa when it was taken? Seventeen. They went to school. Lea looked after his sister and Isa took care of his dog, actually, Lea also looked after _you_ but that was his summer job, and Zack was a guard in training but no one had ever sent him on night watch or stuff like that… in a perfect world, Sora now would be attending school, and that’s where _you_ would be right now, too. Of course, a perfect world wouldn’t need heroes.» She looked quite sad, but when Shiro looked in her eyes, Aerith smiled. «But sooner or later things will be fine again.»

For a moment, the older girl remained in silence, her face tense. There was a strange smell in the room, like something had just burnt.

«Shiro… we _did_ turn off the toaster after breakfast, didn’t we?» Aerith asked in a worried voice.

“ _Yes, you did_ ,” the conscience immediately answered and Shiro nodded.

«I smell something burning. Do you?» she asked then.

It came from upstairs.

Hoping with all her heart no Red Nocturne had broken in, Shiro summoned her Keyblade and ran up the flight of stairs.

Everything seemed fine. The windows were closed and there was silence. She checked a bedroom that had always been empty ever since she had arrived, then Aerith’s room, then the guestroom where she slept… the smell came from there.

The desk in a corner.

The diary she kept there.

Shiro dismissed the Keyblade and opened the book. It was rather warm, as if a weak fire magic had been unleashed near it. Some of the pages, among the last ones, were slightly shriveled and warmer, and there were little brown burn marks… _no, wait_. They were burn marks, but _words_ too! Someone had written on her diary!

_Dear Shiro,_

_Can you imagine this? Lemon and fire make an amazing invisible ink!_

_If you’re reading this, it means I couldn’t properly say goodbye._

_You know, ‘Shroom, I’m happy I finally saw you among people. I may even say I’m jealous, but what can a Nobody know about jealousy?_

_I just wanted to tell you to be strong, and to trust Sora: he’ll take you to your family just like Roxas and I promised, okay? And please don’t be sad for me. Seeing your smile has kept me going on for all these years, and now you’re a warrior, and warriors don’t cry, okay?_

_I have many things to tell you, but I’m out of time._

_Be careful, Shiro, and take care of yourself. Don’t get your loved ones worried._

_Keep me in your memories._

_Love you._

_Axel_

Aerith entered the room as Shiro let her diary fall to the floor.

«No… it can’t be…»

She was visibly shaking… what had just happened?

A quick look to the open pages gave her the answer: a farewell letter? _Lea’s handwriting_?

After all that time… he had looked after the child _all that time_ … and what had just happened to him?

Shiro now was sobbing, covering her face with her hands.

«Tell me why I’m not supposed to cry!» she managed to say between the sobs.

«Lea, you _idiot_ ,» Aerith whispered. She felt a lump in her throat… if that letter really was a farewell and it had come out all of a sudden somehow… and now Lea was _dead_ … but how had it happened? What could have happened?

The young woman remained in silence, then she sat near Shiro and waited for the little girl to come to her. She looked for a tissue in her pockets and tried to dry her eyes – when _would that story end_? Was she supposed to tell Cloud, or the Justice… _just… what was happening_?

And if _Lea_ had been alive for all those years… what about Zack… Isa… Kairi?

No, that couldn’t be. Zack had not reappeared, same for Isa… and the only Kairi they had met in all that time was _from another world_. From Sora’s world.

«Why is everyone leaving me alone?» Shiro hugged Aerith as she kept crying. «First Roxas, now Axel too… why?»

Aerith didn’t know what to say – it wasn’t easy to explain death to a child, it had already been terrible with Yuffie when the Garden had fallen. She held her tight, caressing her hair… it didn’t matter what the letter said, Shiro _did_ need to let it all out and cry, if that would have made her feel better later.

«It’s my fault…» Shiro stopped to catch her breath, then cried again. «Roxas… Axel… Zack… it’s just my fault if it all happened, they wanted to protect me and I just can’t…»

She stayed in silence for a moment, as if she was talking to someone no one else could hear, staring at an empty spot in the room, still sobbing, then she rubbed at her face with a closed fist and spoke again.

«I… I want Mom!»

«We’ll find her.» Aerith immediately answered, despite she knew how hard it would have been to keep that promise. «Shiro, you’re only twelve. Remember? You can’t try to take on the whole universe and expect to make it on your own.»

She didn’t seem convinced, but Aerith said nothing else. She could imagine how Shiro felt – if Lea, or Axel, or whatever he had named himself had raised Shiro for the last ten years, losing him for the girl meant losing her life as she had known it.

Ten years before, she had hoped and prayed that her friends were still out there. Cloud _had_ come back but as the shadow of the boy he had once been. Lea had taken care of Shiro, and now who knew _how_ and _why_ … he had died. All of the survivors still bore the signs of the disaster, and yet the disaster wasn’t over.

Aerith couldn’t even be sure they had _learned_ from their loss.

 _What is your heart telling you_?

Aerith was no longer sure.

* * *

_He was on the Twilight Town station clocktower._

_Roxas was with him._

_«Soon we won't be able to talk like this anymore.»_

_«Does that mean it's time for me to go back to where I belong?» Roxas looked up. «What… about you?»_

_Axel put a hand on his best friend’s shoulder._

_«Ahead, I suppose. I have people waiting. My parents. My grandma. My little sister…»_

_He could almost see them. As if they were waiting, right in front of him. He started wondering why was he talking to Roxas, and not to them._

_He could almost hear their voices again._

_But not Kairi._

_«Axel, is something wrong?» Roxas had a start._

_Axel closed his eyes. Was that really his name?_

_«Roxas, are you really sure that you don't have a heart? Is it possible that we ALL have one? You, me, and…? Or is that just wishful thinking?»_

_«Sora will find the answer we're looking for… I know he will.» Roxas stood up, grinning ear to ear._

_The town was fading all around them. Roxas was fading… Axel himself felt like if he was vanishing. Was that really the end?_

_«They’ll be fine, I know.» Those were Roxas’s last words. «We all will be.»_

* * *

_Now or never_.

Riku had remained all that time a silent observer, helping Sora the best he could without being seen. A part of him had tried to tell him he had made his own bed _and_ lied in it by acting that way, but he was too ashamed to show himself.

Shiro had been another matter entirely – she had _never_ seen his real face before, apart from once or twice, and she had probably already forgotten it.

 _Yeah, Shiro_. Now who was supposed to tell her Axel was gone?

The boy clenched his fist, and the feeling of his hand on his Keyblade’s hilt took him back to here and now. If everything was going just as planned, Naminé would have brought Kairi out of the cells and they would have left the castle.

And… _there they were_ , they were running down the walkway. Riku still stayed hidden – he didn’t _want_ to be seen, not if he could avoid it… _save Kairi, destroy Kingdom Hearts, disappear, go look for Aqua. Save Kairi, destroy Kingdom Hearts, disappear, go look for Aqua._

A Dark Corridor opened in front of the girls, and Saïx came out of it along with two of his Bersekers.

Riku bit his lip not to swear. He raised his Keyblade, ready to fight… and he clearly saw Kairi raise her hand and _another_ Keyblade had appeared in her hands.

 _Did that really just happen_? Riku didn’t know what to think, he only knew he felt his heart up his throat, and his heartbeats so loud he felt deafened. _Kairi_. Kairi was defending herself.

It wasn’t quite enough – a blow from a Berseker sent her flying backwards and she landed on Naminé – but _she was not alone_.

Riku sprinted ahead, vanishing temporarily in the shadows, then he reappeared next to Kairi, reached out and helped her up.

He was about to tell her something, just like if that battle was nothing more than one of their endless childhood adventures against an imaginary undead crew, or handmade sand monsters, or their classmates while arguing over their territories on the play island…

… but _no,_ he couldn’t and wouldn’t get recognized.

At least she didn’t seem to fear him. She was no match for the Bersekers alone, but she seemed to feel more confident now Riku was near her. One, two… the whitish titans were soon first tatters and then smoke, then Saïx was alone.

Before Riku could block him against a wall, the Nobody opened another Dark Corridor and vanished.

Riku was tempted to say something, to even be able to yell out his disappointment, but _Kairi would have recognized him_.

Well, he couldn’t really stay there.

«Riku… you're really here…»

 _OH, CRAP_.

«Let’s take stock. Where’s Sora?»

«He should be with the King. They’re coming.»

Despite their difference in stature, Kairi still managed to grab Riku’s ear and give a pull.

«Are you telling me _you don’t know where he is right now_?» she scolded him. «Have you really left him all alone?»

It seemed almost impossible for his current size, but Riku made himself as small as possible when Kairi turned her glare on him.

«I… _didn’t_ ,» the boy confessed. «I asked the King to look after him. But… I… don’t…»

Kairi slapped her forehead with a hand. _Seriously, Riku_? For how Sora could get worried sick for someone, Kairi wouldn’t have been surprised if their best friend was half-dead of heartache!

«You’re _a special brand of thick_ , man, and be grateful I’m not yelling.» She rolled her eyes and kept walking. «That Saïx guy, does he have friends in here?»

«There should be Xigbar, Luxord and Xemnas left, apart from him.» Riku murmured. «If I got it right, they’re placed in strategical positions to slow Sora down, Xemnas is trying to do something with Kingdom Hearts and looks like he needs time or something. DiZ instead, he’s with us, has some kind of machinery to _destroy_ Kingdom Hearts, or at least encode it in data or something. As for me…»

«As for _us_ …» Kairi interrupted him. «I could easily guess you want to go in and open up a way for Sora. If you plan to do it, my place is with you.»

If his movements and voice hadn’t been the evidence Kairi had needed to know it was Riku, the face he pulled at her reply was a further confirmation it was really him.

Really, Kairi would have lost her patience with those two, but she wouldn’t have traded her boys for nothing in the world. Riku, still with his familiar resigned look on an unfamiliar face, surpassed her with a stride, took a look around and made her stop.

«Xigbar’s beyond that door,» he whispered.

«I know him.» Kairi couldn’t hide the disgust in her voice. «Anything else I should know?»

Riku grinned and gave a shrug.

«Let’s say we met a girl who knows things.» He seemed rather smug. Kairi imagined she was supposed to give his informer a handshake. Judging by how well Riku talked about her, that girl had to be able to pull her weight.

«Who, Naminé?» she found herself asking, and surprisingly Riku took a hand to his mouth to hide a chuckle.

«What, are you jealous?» he replied. «No, she’s a younger kid. Her name is Shiro, she was kidnapped when she was very little. I took her away. Now, according to what she said, Xigbar is the boss’s number 2. He can teleport and he fights with a couple of gun thingies. He keeps his distance but he’s vulnerable when he reloads.»

He stayed in silence for a moment.

«Shiro _hates his guts_.»

There wasn’t much time left for planning, but if Xigbar was really waiting for Sora, he probably was facing away from the door. Probably the best strategy was to wait for Sora to come and attack in that very moment to get Xigbar between hammer and anvil.

The two summoned their Keyblades and waited. The wait and silence seemed to last an age, and then…

«You’ve really put Organization XIII in a pickle. I guess that must be why the Keyblade chose you. But _man_ , did it pick a dud this time. You don’t look like you're half the hero the others were.»

«Are you done rambling?» A boy’s angry voice replied.

It was different from how Kairi remembered it… but that _was Sora_ , she could have sworn it.

«Rambling? _As if_.» Xigbar replied in his usual uncaring voice. Kairi wondered if he had had that very same voice when he had had his eye gouged out, or when _whoever_ had done it had burnt his hair off.

«All I’m trying to tell you, traitor, is that your time is up!»

Kairi and Riku exchanged a glance. Yeah, time was _definitely_ up. For that one-eyed piece of crap.

They raised their weapons and kicked the door open, trying to blindside their enemy.

They were two steps away from him when Xigbar had a start and _vanished_. He reappeared behind them, with a sneer on his disfigured face.

«Oh, am I interrupting a reunion?»

He snapped his fingers, and the room surrounding them changed.

They ended up on the lower floor, Sora standing between them just as shocked as they were. Xigbar looked at them from the upper floor with his ugly vulture eye.

«Be _patient_ , kiddos. I could teach you a thing or two about long waits, but this time I’ll have mercy.»

«Get down here and fight like a man, you son of a rat!» Sora was looking confused, but that didn’t prevent him from yelling at the sniper.

Riku seemed to be holding back his words, but Kairi knew him too well to imagine he’d be staying in silence after Sora had started such a taunt. If Sora began, Riku finished, just like Sora finished if Riku began, and there had also been many times in which Kairi had started it and the boys had just added their own.

Okay, maybe _most_ of the times.

«What’s the matter? Are you afraid of us?» Kairi yelled at Xigbar, then she gave Riku a look, signaling him to intervene. She saw him _visibly_ gulping… then the taller boy smirked.

«Shiro sends her _love_ , you wharf rat!»

With a quick motion of his hand, Riku pointed his Keyblade at Xigbar and from the tip of the weapon erupted a flurry of purple flames. The monocle teleported away, but his face was livid with fury.

«Guys!» Kairi raised her guard. «Remember Wakka?»

«Wakka? Wha…?» Sora looked around. He didn’t seem to get it, but Riku locked his gaze on Xigbar and closed his guard, as they had done countless times in their summer play battles to defend themselves from the painful and infallible blows their old friend had hurled with his leather ball. After a moment, when Xigbar started shooting translucent slugs, Sora understood and closed his guards, sending the shots back to their enemy.

Having no way to parry, Xigbar took the hit, not without bursting out: «Clever little sneak!» to… _well, one of the three_.

«Regroup!» Riku raised his left arm, gesturing also to Donald and Goofy. «We’re five to one, let’s not get in each other’s way!»

It was clear Wakka had nothing on Xigbar: despite the Nobody also was a distance fighter, and his hits could be sent back, he vanished and reappeared several meters away, even his _hands_ sometimes… he could portal them far away from his body.

Every now and then he also shot bigger, blueish bullets, that Sora, who had ended up becoming the most agile in the group, repelled jumping high in the air and batting them away like in baseball.

«His goons like this shot!» he quickly explained to Kairi when he landed near her. «Careful, this could bounce off the walls!»

He sprinted away, trying to give their enemy a taste of his blade. On the other side, Riku pounced trying to do the same, with the purpose of cornering him. Xigbar disappeared, and Kairi had barely the time to hear a noise behind her before Goofy and his shield stood between her and the Nobody.

«I could have made it!» she told the knight, swatting back to sender some purple bullets.

«Better safe than sorry, aw-yuk!» Goofy answered her before Xigbar vanished. He reappeared almost in the middle of the imaginary triangle they had formed, and it seemed Donald had almost predicted it, because he raised his staff and lightning rained from the ceiling.

«I see you kids have a questionable idea of _FAIR_ play… fine, as you like it!» Xigbar commented, and the room around them was gone.

Now Kairi and her four allies were standing on four pillars, each of them alone in the middle of a void, with Xigbar cackling from a central plinth.

«Now let’s see how you dance!»

Before they could think of a strategy, he sent at them a flurry of blue bullets, then he vanished and reappeared in the air above them, floating in a circle, shooting and shooting at them. Those hits couldn’t even be sent back, only parried or dodged… Kairi tried to move as fast as she could, trying not to get hit, but her arms hurt, when a bullet hit it hurt just like hot iron, and that flurry of bullets seemed to never end…

… just when it felt like her arms and knees were about to give in, the room went back to normal. Donald ran to her and put a green flask in her free hand, Riku stood in front of her, and Sora, despite giving Riku a puzzled look, gave them a smile and put his fist on his chest, mumbling something that Kairi couldn’t discern.

The boy was covered by a flash of light, his clothes became pure white and another Keyblade appeared in his left hand.

Xigbar’s only eye was wide open in shock just before Sora pointed at him both swords, and a single beam of light was emitted from both, hitting him square in the chest.

Initially it seemed the monocle had resisted the hit, but his hands started shaking, he let go of his weapons and collapsed to his knees.

«You mentioned other wielders.» Sora dismissed one of the Keyblades and his clothes turned back black and blue, but he kept pointing the other blade at Xigbar. «Where is Shiro’s mother? _Speak_!»

Xigbar cackled, his gaze still on the floor. He raised his head. Was he… _fading_?

«Wouldn’t you like to know…»

And he vanished into thin air.

“ _You fucking son of a vulture, wharf rat, swamp vermin, I know you know something, I’ll come for you in the Underworld and I’ll make you puke it out…!_ ”

Sora was literally _deafened_ by the same voice who had cried when Axel had disappeared. He took a hand to his temple… he felt he was about to have a headache. The voice seemed to understand, because Sora could _literally_ hear it (him?) take a breath and murmur an apology.

«… is that you, Roxas?» Sora murmured.

If he really was there, Roxas remained in silence. Only then Sora noticed Kairi – _Kairi_! – staring at him.

«Are you talking to yourself, Sora?»

He didn’t have even the time to feel relieved Kairi was there and she was _okay_ … no, right now he wanted to sink in the floor or turn invisible… that was really the _worst impression ever_ …

“ _Hey, wait a second_!” Roxas, if _that_ was him, intervened again.

Sora said nothing, worried as he was to cover himself in ridicule _again_.

«That’s not the first time I see it.» The other wielder, who terrifyingly looked like Xehanort’s Heartless but didn’t look like an enemy, approached Kairi and gave Sora an inquisitional look. «Shiro, she does that too. Our informer. She says it’s her _conscience_ or something talking to her.»

«The girl who spilled the beans about Xigbar and the Organization?» Kairi asked him. She seemed to be trusting him, so Sora didn’t worry, despite the looks of the man reminding him of bad memories.

«Yeah, she talks to herself every now and then. Or so it would seem.» The man’s look was unusually familiar, like if someone had stuck on an adult’s face the facial expression of a teenager. «And now Sora’s doing it, too.»

«It’s not me, it’s Roxas!» Sora burst out without even thinking.

«I guess Shiro’s in for some questions once we see her again. Her and _her conscience_.» The stranger rolled his eyes and opened a Dark Corridor. Sora was about to stick a finger in his ear to clean it up, that voice sounded way too much like…

“ _Please tell me you’re about to say Riku. That’s the right answer_.”, Roxas didn’t even let him finish thinking. There was bitterness, maybe even anger, in his voice.

«… Riku?» Sora had hardly put breath in his words, and he could hardly hear his own voice as he muttered… but the man in black was looking at his face and flinched as if he had been just stung.

 _Riku could read lips_.

“ _Of course it’s him! He ended up that way so he could stand up and beat me up after I gave him a taste of the pavement out there…_ ” Roxas commented.

«You’re wrong.» The other said in a low, adult-like voice. «I’m just a castaway from the Darkness.»

“ _What a fucking idiot!_ ” Roxas couldn’t help commenting. “ _Can you tell him? Let me SPEAK!_ ”

«Damn, Riku, when’d you get to be like this?» Kairi gave the boy a scolding look and grabbed him by the sleeve in a tight grip, then gestured for Sora to approach them. «Sora, c’mere! Your hand!»

Kairi took Sora’s wrist with her free hand and made him lay his hand on the one of the stranger she had called Riku.

Sora didn’t understand, the man in front of him tried to look away, but Kairi didn’t want to let go, even if her grip was _visibly_ lighter on Sora, almost as if she knew the other was trying to run off.

«Sora, close your eyes.» Kairi told him. « _Trust me_.»

He would have replied, but the boy did it. He was about to tell Kairi he didn’t see anything, but… he felt the presence of the man, no, _boy_ holding his hand, the rhythm of his breaths and of his pulse, a heel impatiently tapping on the floor, just like Riku when he was in embarrass and tried his best to wait for the right moment and disappear…

Not looking at his old enemy’s face, Sora had _seen_ what he had been supposed to find.

«It’s Riku… _Riku’s here_!»

He felt his knees giving him and a weight on the chest he had not even noticed having being finally lifted off. He could no longer hold back neither the sobs nor himself, he only knew he wanted to hug tight the person in front of him and he did – ending up hitting hard his forehead on Riku’s chest.

«Come on, Sora, you've got to pull it together!» A heavy hand gave him two taps on the shoulder, but Sora kept crying on his best friend, holding him tight because _no way in Hades he’d let go right now, not now they were together again_ …

«You _both_ are a special brand of thick!» Kairi scolded them, then Sora felt her arm too against his back. She had had to be hugging both of them, because Riku was doing nothing, but Sora felt he was being pressed hard against him.

He could feel his friend shaking, and he head Riku’s voice sobbing. He hugged him tighter, he had to if Riku needed a hug.

«I made a promise, Sora…» Riku confessed when the hug was over, staring at his feet. It was rare for Sora to see his friend in embarrass, but his posture, his voice, _it was him for sure_. «You remember Shiro, don’t you? I told her…»

«You’d find her parents?» Sora crossed his arms behind his head. «We’re in the right place, Riku. The Organization has to know something. We just need to be careful not to make them fade before they speak, but you can blame it on Roxas if Xigbar did.»

“ _Remind me to punch your face when this is all over._ ”

Roxas seemed rather offended by the comment, but Riku took a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh. Kairi was rather puzzled, but Riku explained things to her as soon as he was done laughing.

«Shiro lost her parents when she was little. And they’re Keyblade wielders, like us. Maybe the Organization wants something from them, maybe there’s someone behind all this, but…»

«Xemnas knows things.» Sora concluded. «He passed himself off as Shiro’s father for all this time…» _Not to say he literally stole his face…_ , he thought bitterly. «So, Riku, you’re coming with us. And then… then we go home.»


	7. See You Soon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, the title of the chapter isn't inspired at all by longing for better days and wanting to see our friends. No way. Nooope.  
> (Stay safe, everyone.)

_Dear Shiro,_

_Sora, Kairi and I are finally home!_

_I don’t think we’re staying for long, two days after we got here, we had a letter from the King. Looks like he might have a lead about your parents, so I think Donald and Goofy will pick us up with the Gummiship and then… I guess we’re seeing Yen Sid… Mickey mentioned a test, the Mark of Mastery Exam, and he thinks Sora and I are ready to take it. Looks like it’s something Keyblade wielders used to do in the past. I’m somewhat scared, but I guess I can do it._

«Are you sure you’re all set?»

Ravus stepped over Luna’s duffel bag, picked up a scarf from where his sister had dropped it, and stuck it into the bag.

«Before you think I can’t take care of myself…» Luna gave him a grin. «Just remind me who used to help you get dressed when that arm of yours was in a brace.»

«You got me.» Ravus said nothing else. But he couldn’t help feeling worried… they had always faced everything as a pair, and now Noctis and his friends were leaving and _Luna was going with them_.

 _Someone_ had to help those four mangy cats in their quest for the source of the chaos, for whoever had started it and whoever could stop it for good.

After two days in which the number of Heartless had kept dwindling, Strange had decreed that it was time to go… he had told them it was the calm before the storm, and that Noctis and Luna would have had to assist some people he had called the _keybearers_.

Ravus would have stayed there – Strange would have needed help, and the Heartless _would have come back_ , until whatever led them wasn’t stopped once and for all. He was upset it had to be Luna who had to leave… she would have left her studies, and he didn’t have much left there apart from her and the Mystical Arts… but if Strange was sure of something, usually, it was because that something would happen.

Luna had picked up her bag and hoisted it on her shoulders when the doorbell rang.

«Now who is it?» Luna immediately commented. They had agreed they’d meet at the Sanctum Sanctorum in an hour… it couldn’t be those four.

Ravus was the first to arrive to the door, along with the dogs, who had sprinted at the first ring. He opened the door and almost jumped backwards in surprise.

There was _the Broadway bum_ in front of them. Inexplicably sober, with a cleaner face and in garments that looked rather old but also whole and clean. Ravus had imagined the money he had handed him to give Noctis a wake-up call would have turned out useful for him, but he certainly didn’t hope the man would have used it for a barber and a thrift shop.

«What are…?» Ravus shook his head.

«I’ve heard your friends saying you were going to another world.» The man sustained his gaze, even if he looked slightly in embarrass. «I… I remembered the name of my own. It’s _Radiant Garden_ … could you please… take me home?»

«You?» Luna joined Ravus at the door and stared at their visitor as if he had just grown wings.

«Yeah, me.» The man stuffed his hands in his pockets. «Oh, by the way, I never told you kids my name. I’m an idiot… Genesis Rhapsodos… commander of the Radiant Garden guards.»

_I doubt you’ll recognize me when we’ll meet again. Long story short… I’m shorter. My voice is still the same, though, and my Keyblade too. I’ve been to the barber as soon as I got home and got a haircut, I didn’t feel like keeping them long anymore. And I have new clothes!_

_I’ve seen my parents and my classmates… it feels strange to see them again after a year. Their lives went on just like mine. Sora and I have to take a test – yeah, another! – to make sure we haven’t lost the school year, but we haven’t decided for a date yet, not with all that’s about to happen._

_I think Sora is more afraid of the school test rather than the Mark of Mastery, but I guess that’s to be expected. Lately, we’ve been holding a Keyblade for much longer than schoolbooks and pencils._

«Hey, Riku, who are you writing to?» Kairi entered the room and dropped her duffel bag on the floor. Some habits of hers were _really_ die hard, Riku noticed, because her training sword was still strapped to the bag.

Riku clicked the pen closed and handed her the sheet.

«I thought she’d be happy to know we’re fine,» he explained. «That I still wanna keep my promise.»

Kairi put a hand on his shoulder as she read.

«She’ll be fine too. You’ll see.» She reassured him.

Riku somehow doubted it. After all, it had been _him_ who had taken her best friend to gain back his own. To bring her back to her own family, wherever they were, was the least he could have done.

«What, don’t you believe me?» Kairi ran a hand through his hair, then the other, irreparably tousling his hair. She had done that _at least_ once a day ever since Riku had gotten a haircut.

«Hard to explain.» Riku started playing with the pen.

«Well, try anyway.» Kairi took a seat. «Riku, no more secrets within the three of us. If there really is a coming storm like the King said, we have to _know_ what we’re facing. I was the first idiot who did _not_ ask you if there was something wrong last year, and I don’t want to make that same mistake, so try your best to do the same.»

Without stopping playing with the pen, Riku closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

«I… condemned Shiro’s best friend… I condemned Roxas… so I could save Sora.» He confessed. «And she doesn’t know.»

«I wouldn’t say condemned, since he’s still messing around in my head.» Sora entered the room with a backpack of his own. «Right now, he’s telling me he’d happily punch you, but I’ll pass, thanks a lot.»

He gave an embarrassed grin, dropped the backpack to the ground and took a seat on the empty seat by Riku’s side. «Are you two ready?»

The meetup would have been in a couple hours at the play island, and the three of them were rather anxious about the departure.

«Let me finish this.» Riku clicked the pen once more and seized the sheet.

«Tell her not to write back, she might see us before the letter if Yen Sid ends up calling her to the Tower,» Sora leant on him. «And how is she? Leon mentioned me they found some teachers for the local school… I don’t envy her, that won’t be fun.»

Riku had to hold himself back from squishing playfully Sora’s face against the table surface. Light knew how much he loved him, but sometimes his best friend could be really _thick_.

He asked himself if his friend would ever realize how much Riku was fond of him. If Kairi was aware of how it was the same for her… sometimes those two seemed way too happy to think about it… the older boy bit his lip.

He had to give his two Most Important People a little talk, if they really were about to fight a war.

He would have never forgiven himself, had they really gotten to the end of everything without telling them what he really felt for them…

… so why was he so afraid he did not deserve them?

_Talking about Sora, he wants to know if you’re OK. I think we’ll already be at the Tower, if not even elsewhere, when you’ll get this letter, but maybe when we’ll see you again, tell him everything. By the way, I have a few questions for you, once we can meet again in person, but that can wait for now._

_Maybe when we’ll be together again, I’ll have more news about your parents… and believe me, I really, REALLY hope I will._

_Mickey mentioned some data in Jiminy’s Journal, but he wasn’t very verbose in his letter. (That would mean, in case you don’t know the word, that he wrote VERY LITTLE about it.)_

_See you SOON!_

_Riku_

* * *

It was rare that, in an autumn as cold as that one, the sky gave the town a little truce, but it seemed that day was going to be sunny.

Cloud leant against one of the pines in the square, his breath condensing in the morning chill. After ten years, it was the first sunrise Radiant Garden would see.

The city had gotten back to be the one he remembered, from the pines in the square to the school, from the small house he had lived in with his Mom to the café where he, Zack and Lea had used to meet up before the bell rang to buy a coffee and now, like many other buildings, was empty. Merlin had put back streets and buildings where they had been in just a night, but it would have taken longer to bring back the borough to what it had really been.

Cloud had gathered his few belongings from the Justice’s house and had left at dawn.

He could have gone back _home_ … but he didn’t know if he felt like it. That was no longer home – not without Mom waiting there for him.

He had spent some time wandering aimlessly, until, right as the castle bells struck seven, his feet had brought him to the square where, a lifetime before, he had made a friend.

With his back still against the tree, Cloud closed his eyes.

He could still hear Aerith yelling at him to run, the wind on his face as he tripped on the stones, his heart thundering in his throat and in his ears… _he had always been a little scaredy-cat_.

“ _But you’re still here now, aren’t you?_ ” Cloud could have sworn he had heard someone saying. He stayed with his eyes closed. He almost felt he was not alone. As if Zack was there, with his back on the opposite side of the same tree, keeping him company.

As if Cloud heard his voice again, and they still were the two kids playing baseball in the main square.

“ _If it were me, I still wouldn’t give up. Embrace your dreams_.”

 _My dreams_ …? A lifetime before, Cloud would have given everything to get into the city guards. He didn’t even know if he _did_ have dreams right now… he would have just wanted everything to come back as it had been, but _no_ , not even that, he just wanted…

… no one else to experience what he had gone through.

He did not even remember clearly what had _really_ happened. He remembered being attacked by Sephiroth while he and Zack had tried to take Shiro away from Lord Ansem’s castle… but _he also remembered Sephiroth being willing to help them out a few moments before_.

He remembered being offered help from the Saïx guy… _but not how and why he had turned his back on them._

He slowly opened his eyes and made a few steps towards the center. The borough had started filling with people, some passersby had started greeting him (Leon hinted at a rare grin, and Cecil, from his old baseball team, waved at him and said his name).

Even the kids were in the streets. Right… it was _the first day of school_ for them.

He even recognized some of the ones he had rescued. Almost all of them, courtesy of donations and a little magic from Merlin, had found a uniform. Denzel, who was wearing a hoodie over the school shirt, kept telling and repeating to Tifa he wasn’t nervous and he felt fine. Shiro, with old Mr. Kupo peeking from her backpack, wore the uniform that – Cloud recognized the mending on the skirt – had belonged to Aerith once.

Many of those people, of those children, were there, were in good health and serene… also because of him.

“ _Come on, man, tell me again you don’t wanna be a guard anymore. You ARE one. In all but name._ ”

He could still do something for the town he had been born in. Yes… if Radiant Garden had another chance, the same went for him.

He just had to…

«Hey, Leon! Can we talk?»

* * *

Sora knocked at the door and opened, letting Riku and Kairi in first.

Yen Sid was at his usual seat at the desk, Mickey standing just near him.

Mickey gave them a hasty and nervous wave, then Yen Sid immediately spoke.

«Sora, Riku, Kairi… the time has come,» he began. «Xehanort's heart, once seized by his Heartless half, is now free. And his body, which had become his Nobody, has been vanquished. Their destruction now guarantees the original Xehanort's reconstruction. Both halves will now be returned to the whole.»

Sora immediately turned to look at his friend, verifying if they were just as confused as he was by what had just been said by the old sorcerer. Xehanort’s heartless had died, and so had his Nobody… or better, if they had to trust what Mickey had said, the Heartless of the Xehanort who had taken Terra’s appearance.

«Is this going to happen for all the _other_ Nobodies?» Riku commented. «Axel, Marluxia and all the other nine?» Despite the fear, there was a hint of hope in his voice. Sora immediately understood – those _were_ good news, or at least they’d be for Shiro.

«Well, if _their_ Heartless were vanquished too, which is highly likely…» Mickey commented, putting both hands on his chin.

«Axel turned his coat. He could help,» Sora intervened. «Even just for Shiro, he literally brought her up.» Roxas convinced him to add.

«I don’t trust him.» Kairi contradicted him.

«Kairi, it was him who told me where to find you.» Sora tried to explain. «If he really is a person again… I think he’d be the closest thing Shiro has to a family. Like… Henry for you?»

Kairi kept giving Sora a skeptical look, but said nothing. Sora was immediately tempted to apologize, despite a part of him – fully supported by Roxas – was convinced he had not said anything wrong.

«We still can’t afford ourselves to look for them,» Yen Sid intervened, earning an offense from Roxas. «The priority now is for the three of you to complete your training the best you can. Xehanort will return, and he won’t be alone. If we are ever to strike him down, we need the individuals King Mickey spoke of in his letter.»

«Shiro’s parents…» Riku gave a nod. «… and their companion…?»

«Exactly,» the sorcerer answered. «We must lead them out of sorrow and slumber, and back to our world. To do so, Sora and Riku, seven Sleeping Keyholes must be found and unlocked, and a great power, the Power of Waking, retrieved. Kairi, you will be headed to Radiant Garden instead. Your capabilities, despite allowing you to help, are still not on par to the ones of your friends. You will help the Restoration Committee and the rising city guard in protecting the borough, in case Xehanort and his men try to seize it back, and Merlin the wizard might be of help in learning magic.»

«Fine by me.» Kairi gave a slight bow with her head.

«As for you boys… the Sleeping Keyholes are hard to reach. You brought many worlds back from the darkness, but some never returned completely. They still sleep, cut off from all outside channels. Not even the Heartless can enter, but these Sleeping Worlds are said to have their own manner of darkness. They are called Dream Eaters, and there are two kinds: Nightmares, which devour happy dreams, and benevolent Spirits, which consume the Nightmares. The Dream Eaters will guide you, just as the Heartless once guided you…»

* * *

_Hey, Axel, haven’t you forgotten?_

....

The library was the same as ever – huge, silent, and Lea’s voice echoed among shelves and walls.

«Kairi, this just can’t go on. Teachers said that if you keep biting other kids there’s no longer a place for you at the kindergarten.» Lea threw himself on a chair and stared at his sister. Working for Ansem _and_ schoolwork had made him so tired even thinking felt hard, but Grandma had been asked by Even about some books he needed, so he was stuck with the icky job.

Not that Kairi really needed scolding. She was curled up on the chair in front of his, trembling, and she seemed to have realize what she had done not even an hour before.

«Bickson pulled up my dress,» she tried to explain.

«He WHAT?» Lea almost sprang to his feet. He could understand why Kairi had tried to defend herself that way, if that was so.

He had the suspicion Grandma had made Kairi wear a pair of _his_ old briefs.

It happened rather often, especially now that between her job and Lea’s, there wasn’t much time at home to do laundry, and Mrs. Fair, who had helped them several times before, had never been the same after Zack had disappeared.

«Bickson pulled up my dress and yelled at the others I wear boys’ underwear.»

«Jumping chocobos, Kairi, why didn’t you tell the teacher?»

Kairi remained in silence, looking in his eyes while her lip was trembling. Lea would have only wanted to forgive her and let her off the hook – he didn’t have the authority; he only was her dumb brother.

If only Zack and Cloud hadn’t disappeared… they wouldn’t have been in that place.

Maybe the four of them would have been in their adventure of a lifetime, and while he might have been far from Kairi, he would have left a letter and maybe Mrs. Fair wouldn’t have been depressed had she known they all were fine…

«Can I stay here, Lea?» Kairi asked.

«Here? We are here, Kai. You’re staying with us until Grandma goes home, or until I do.» Lea hinted at a grin.

«I don’t wanna go to school anymore. Either here or to another school.» Kairi shook her head, pulling an annoyed grimace.

«No way, kid. Who’s gonna play with Yuna if you leave school?» Lea put a hand on her shoulder. His History teacher had been kind to convince his own daughter to spend time with his sister, but as time had passed, the two girls had grown on each other. They both had peculiar families, and Lea was sure their friendship would have lasted, like his own with Isa.

Kairi said nothing, but kept staring at him with misty eyes. Lea stood up.

«C’mon, give me a big hug!» He knelt on the floor and opened his arms. The little one didn’t need him to repeat, leapt off the chair and put her arms around his neck. Lea held her tight, stood up and span on the spot holding her, before gently letting her go.

«Tomorrow morning I’ll take you to school, right to your classroom, like on your first day.» He promised her. «You’ll show me this dunce and we’ll walk right in front of him, so he’ll understand he won’t be messing with you and he’ll get it memorized!»

Kairi burst into laughter.

Lea gave her a jab on the shoulder with two fingers.

«That’s the spirit, little one!»

The noise of hasty steps emerged from one of the hallways, and Isa leaned on the door, his breath short and an undecipherable expression, but Lea had a really bad feeling about that.

«Am I in troub…?» Lea started saying, but Isa didn’t let him finish.

«Xehanort! He’s attacking everyone with a sword!»

A part of Lea would have shouted “WHAT THE?”, but another made him remain silent. What Zack had feared had turned out to be true, but now…?

Braig had given them weapons, real weapons, when they had crossed the castle doors as new apprentices, but if Zack had never come back from the castle, what chances did they have as mere novices in weapon training?

«We have to take Shiro away. Now.» Isa stared at the hallway from which he had come. «I can’t do this alone, Lea.»

Lea stood in the doorway, giving the library a look. Grandma had to be there for sure, finishing her work.

«Kairi, Isa and I are going to get Shiro. You stay here and lock the door. Don’t open to anyone, to no person ever, unless you hear our secret tap and my voice.»

Kairi looked in his eyes and gave a nod. Lea smiled at her again, even if it immediately felt loads harder to do so.

«We’ll be back soon, and Shiro will be with us. And then we go home.»

They went out, he locked the door and summoned the chakrams he had found in the castle armory. At his side, Isa took to his hand the claymore he had picked.

They didn’t have much time. _They had to be as fast as they could…_

...

_You made us a promise._

_That you'd always be there to bring us back…_

He opened his eyes.

In his last memory, his ears had been deafened by screams. But had it been a boy or a girl?

Of course! _Sora!_ Kairi… the Corridor…!

He was lying on his back, staring at a ceiling. That was no Dark Corridor for sure… he rolled on his back and went up on his knees… there was a computer where a couple of pixelated figures almost seemed to be looking at him.

One of the two, whose hair sticking out of the helmet almost seemed ginger, kept squeaking: «Mister! Yo, Mister! Wake up!» and jumping up and down like some kind of crazy ball. By his look and behavior, he almost looked like a child.

«Come on, Ate, pull yourself together!» the other almost seemed to be holding him back. «Let the User breathe!»

He felt like he was about to burst into laughter. _User_ , him? If those two thingies were computer programs… hang on, he was _really_ feeling like laughing!

He stood up and started looking around. Just where… where was he? Ansem’s Castle? How could he be still alive? Why did he feel like laughing, why did he feel scared and overwhelmed and why…?

… _why did the glass over the screen reflect the image of a PERSON?_

«That’s me…»

There were four more men in the room. Two had started moving…

_That’s me…_

For the first time in ten years, Lea recognized his own face in a mirror.

He took a look back… Aeleus, Dilan, Ienzo and Even were behind him. Aeleus and Ienzo were standing up, looking rather stunned but they did seem to be fine.

«We're _people_ again…» he told them, more to ensure himself than for the others to notice. «But Braig… Isa…»

A thought came to his mind. _Isa knew he had still a family_. Ilyas and Finn had to be home, _they had to_ , Lea remembered that Shiro took care of Finn every now and then…

«I’ll be right back!» Lea walked to the hallway he _remembered_ would lead him outside, faster and faster, he broke into a run.

The castle seemed brand new… as if everything that Lea had seen happening to it had _never_ been there, but Lea didn’t want to think about it, he had a friend to find, _he had to be home_ …

He pushed the door and went outside, into the sunlight.

It was one of those days he would have just _loved_ , a lifetime before, but in that moment he couldn’t care less, he was only thinking about running, on stones that seemed to have never been broken, on streets that only days before were clumps of rocks and ethereal crystals, in front of homes that had been barely rubble and restoration sites the last time he had seen them… he recognized that garden, and that door, and…

_BANG!_

A steel grip nailed him against a wall, a man clad in black held him in place and a gloved hand pressed on his sternum and collarbones.

The snarl on the man’s face left no imagination to his attacker’s intentions… _but Lea recognized those yellow spikes_.

« _Cloud_! It’s me, it’s Lea!»

The grip on his clothes was loosened. Cloud wasn’t the old friend Lea would have wanted to see, but he took advantage of his distraction to swat his hand away and step aside, taking his back away from the wall.

«… how…?» the younger man’s voice was but a murmur.

Lea shook his head. «Man, I could ask you the same question. And I _will_ end up asking it, but judging by your face, you haven’t seen Isa. Have you?»

Cloud snorted. He _still_ looked very mad.

«Aerith told me Shiro has been weeping for _hours_. What the heck did you do? They all thought you were _dead_!»

Lea shrugged and raised his arms in surrender.

«Long story. Too long for you to get it memorized.» He hinted at a grin. «How is she now? How is Shiro?»

«I don’t know, she’s at _school_.»

Of all the answers Lea would have expected to hear, that was the one he thought as the most _unlikely_ one. At school. Shiro was _at school_! After a lifetime in which she had only heard about it from him…

«Cloud, care to explain what’s going on outside? Why are you yelling?»

The front door opened and Justice Ilyas came out, wearing old clothes, looking like he had not shaved in a week, and with an expression that quickly went from curiosity to surprise. Finn was clinging to his trousers and wearing a onesie Lea had seen on Isa in several photographs. The toddler seemed rather _frustrated_ by everyone else’s behavior.

«’Morning, Your Honor.» Lea greeted the Justice as if not a single day had passed since he had last seen him. _No_ … Isa wasn’t there. And breaking into a run until that place, he had only given someone _else_ his own false hopes.

Finn looked at Lea for a moment, then he pulled a face at him and babbled: « _Aphel_.»

«Okay, Lea, care to explain now?» Cloud took a hand to his forehead, visibly exasperated. «Where have you been all this time? Why are you wearing that _thing_? And please, let’s get inside first. This is a street, not the school auditorium.» He gave Finn a gentle shove, pointed the couch to Ilyas and waited until they all were inside before closing the door.

Lea felt almost _sick_ by being there again. The house had not changed at all, save for the toys scattered on the floor and some recent photographs, with new frames, picturing Finn as he made a mess on the high chair, tried walking on a rug, or hopped on the couch.

He sat at his “usual” spot on the couch, trying not to focus too much on the pictures. He almost missed the usual intervention of Bolt, who had been able to sniff the tension in a room and beg for cuddles to dissipate it.

 _Now what could he say_?

The justice stayed in silence, looking in his eyes, and Lea _knew_ , man if he knew, what the old man was about to tell him. He also knew what answer he had to give him, but he didn’t know how.

It was Cloud who broke the ice.

«Okay, Lea, what happened to the others in the castle? We only know about Shiro, and she’s fine. Your family? Isa, the guards, the researchers?»

«I never saw what happened to Grandma.» To a direct question, Lea could not avoid giving a direct answer. «Isa was with me. We were trying to take Shiro away. Xehanort attacked him first. I had ordered Kairi to hide, but… she came for me. The last time I saw her, Xehanort was holding her by a wrist. Ienzo, Even, Dilan and Aeleus were in the same room I woke up in. Isa and Braig haven’t reappeared… and I’m looking for them.»

« _Of course_ it had to be Braig.» The disgust on Cloud’s face was evident, as if he had just swallowed his own vomit. However, his voice betrayed serious concern.

«It’s not the first time I hear that name.» The Justice finally spoke.

«Got it memorized, huh?» Lea put his elbows on his knees and looked at his feet. «Sure you did. Zack and Isa used to keep an eye on him. There always was something very fishy about him. Knowing Isa, he’s probably gone after him again.»

 _Or Braig could have taken him again_ , Lea omitted the remainder of the sentence. Those were the two possibilities, but he did not want to scare his best friend’s father. He seemed to be acting _almost_ normally, but Lea knew him too well not to notice he no longer was the self-confident man he had been.

He needed answers… he had to talk to Sora.

«I think something is about to happen.» The Justice changed the topic of the conversation. «Earlier this morning, people have arrived to the Restoration Committee. Leon only gave me a phone call, but I can’t quite run there because of Finn, not when Shiro is at school, and I had asked Cloud to check on them considering he’s trying to reform the city guard…»

«You? Cloud, that’s amazing!» Lea couldn’t help smiling. «So, what happened?»

«Looks like Genesis showed up.» Cloud stood up, swinging his arms in an almost familiar way. «They’re not quite sure it’s him…»

«Well, ten years could make anyone change,» Ilyas commented.

«… but he probably knows something, too. Leon wanted to call Sora and tell him something about it, but it seems he and his friends are unreachable.»

«Fine, you don’t have to tell me anything else. I know what to do.» Lea stood up. «Then again, if there’s someone who has to be warned Braig’s still around…»

«I’ll be going too.» Cloud walked to the door. «To Merlin’s. I want to see if what Leon said is true.»

He opened the door, went out and closed it.

Lea remained in silence. He was feeling rather uneasy in that place. He could only imagine why he had never seen Suzan or Bolt every time he had been nearby. _They would not be coming back_.

The Justice would have probably cried.

Lea had _seen_ adult men crying, oh if he had. He had seen the firefighters when Mom and Dad had never come back home, and he had stood straight as a pole, holding Kairi in his arms, thinking that in that moment he had to be strong and _be the man_. He had seen old Nikos bursting into _tears_ a week after Zack’s disappearance.

He had never gotten used to seeing it.

«I’ll bring Isa home, Your Honor.» Lea said after a deep breath.

The time for Lea to lose the people in his life without doing anything to prevent it was _over_.

He had been too small for Mom and Dad, too useless for Kairi, in the wrong place for Zack, with _wrong ideas_ for Roxas… and why was he so sure there also had been another time?

It mattered little, though. He wouldn’t be making that same mistake again.

* * *

«I would have never imagined I’d find this city as I remembered it.» the former guard, wearing worn clothes and with a weary look on his face, had almost ignored the cup of tea Cid had put in front of him, but he had attacked the apple pie that had come with it with the voracity of a man used to fasting. «Down to Merlin’s cup of tea.»

The teapot on the table started rocking on the spot, as if it had been somehow offended. The people in the room laughed.

«We were told you just disappeared…» Aerith started, not willing to mention neither Zack, nor Lea or Isa who had been the last people to have seen him. «What happened to you?»

«Xehanort, that’s what happened.» Genesis rolled his eyes. «He and Braig were after the guards ever since the former appeared in the square. They knew we had a lead on them – Fair maybe, I think he knew too much about him. What he said, about the baby’s parents, about monsters in the streets…»

He stayed in silence, looking at Leon and then Aerith and Merlin and Cid, maybe even afraid of the questions he might be about to ask.

«Lord Ansem has disappeared, along with his men.» Leon paced back and forth in the room, talking in a solemn tone. «The city guards all disappeared before the city fell. A _Replica Project_ was mentioned by Professor Even, to copy their strength and abilities in a new city guard, but the city fell before all this could happen. The Keyblade wielders Zack mentioned actually found us and helped us in rebuilding the borough. Sora, Riku and Master Mickey, though, lately are unreachable. We received news of _another_ wielder who is coming here for training… and then there’s Shiro. But I won’t count her as a wielder, she’s too young.»

«Shiro is at the Junior High for her education, right where a twelve-year-old belongs.» Merlin specified.

Aerith would have wanted to ask Genesis if he knew something about Zack. Or Isa. But if even Cloud had been able to say nothing about them…

The door swung open and – _speaking of the Chernabog_ – Cloud rushed inside.

«What the _fuck_ held you back, kid?» Cid yelled at him as a greeting. Cloud was as ashen as he had been when he had reappeared the previous year, but he had a different light in his eyes. He looked around and bit his lip, just when at school he had had a lot to say without knowing where to begin. He almost looked as if he had just seen a ghost.

«Now listen here Cid, you won’t obtain anything from him if you start shaking him ‘round like a stuffed Moogle!» Merlin assailed the engineer. «Now take a seat, son.» A chair moved on its own and seized Cloud from behind, forcing him to sit and dragging him to the table. The teapot filled a cup in front of him, and the sugar bowl pottered along until the cup and started pouring sugar in it.

As much as Cid and Merlin could argue, they had in common the routine – not to say obsession – to offer at all costs a cup of tea to whoever crossed Merlin’s doorway. Aerith had been sure they had started that custom not to get at each other’s throats during the rest of the day, but if Cid kept visiting the wizard even now he had his own home again, those two had probably ended up becoming good friends.

« _Cloud_?» Only when he was close, Genesis recognized the boy. «Cloud Strife? Fair’s bestie?»

The sugar bowl, completely ignored by everyone, kept pouring sugar in the boy’s cup.

«Aerith…» Cloud seemed to have no interest in either Genesis’s speech or the sugar. «I’ve seen him. At the Justice’s house. _Lea is alive_. Lord Ansem’s apprentices are alive.»

* * *

Shiro opened the door, closed it after herself, and left her backpack on one of the chairs around the table.

«I’m home!» she announced, but no one answered. Aerith had to be still doing business with the Committee, or maybe she was trying to convince Cloud “not to be so thick”.

Ever since her old friend had defeated – for, like, the second time? – that Sephiroth he always talked about, he almost seemed to have lifted a weight off his heart for how he had started walking, talking and acting, but there still was something that felt _wrong_ in him, and he still acted shy, in particular with Aerith and Shiro.

It had probably something to do with Zack.

 _Zack._ That boy Shiro did not remember, and yet had left his mark in the memory of the citizens of Radiant Garden, on the paw of a stuffed Moogle, and in many photographs.

Shiro had written all she knew about him in the empty pages of her diary, after Axel’s last letter, hoping that by putting the pieces together she might get a lead on his whereabouts.

That was _way_ harder than she thought. He and Cloud had fought Sephiroth eleven years before… and Sephiroth had been the _captain of the Radiant Garden city guards_.

Probably it all had happened where the castle cameras could have _seen it_. And ever since Sora and Tron had defeated the MCP…

Shiro gave her notes another read. If the clues on Zack really stopped at Sephiroth, it was there she had to look for.

And if Ate and Nines, Cid’s new programs, had been able to recover the plans and surveys of the whole city, how hard could it be for them to solve a missing person case?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beater talking here:  
> The episode of Lea at the funeral holding his sister and staying stoic and silent is inspired to something that really happened to me when my Grandpa, who was literally my "second dad", left us when I was 16. Two of my cousins were 5 and 2 and as the oldest I felt like I had to stay strong not to upset them further, being the big kid and everything. I'm not one of those people who think boys aren't supposed to cry, but I thought that a kid in a position of "authority" in his generation might be acting like that regardless of gender.


	8. Ate and Nines

Riku opened his journal and went back to the pages in which he had written his report about the Nightmare he had taken down on the rooftops of the Second District in Traverse Town. The enemy had been similar to the Meow Wows he had met when he had set foot in there the first time – one of them, whom according to the weird Joshua boy had been made by Sora and answered to the name _Catastrophe_ , had started following Riku in his adventures – but was faster, more aggressive and could _teleport_. Riku had realized he was facing a different Dream Eater when he had been close enough to see its tail, which instead of having the shape of a sausage ended as the petals of a flower.

_Flowbermeow_ , Joshua had helped him giving the Nightmare a name, but Riku was certain that, with the data and the dream pieces he had gathered, he could have made it his friend.

«I’m still wondering…» Riku mumbled as he put together the dream pieces to create his new buddy. «The Nightmares. Catastrophe and the other Spirits. You, Shiki, Rhyme… why can you cross the Portals and Sora and I can’t?»

«There’s something else you need to know.» Joshua sat next to him and gave him a solemn look. «These two Traverse Towns separated by the Portal... I was under the impression they were parallel worlds, but it looks like I was wrong.»

«Wrong how?» Riku looked up from his work.

Joshua laid an elbow on a hand, and his free hand on his chin. «That's where it gets tricky. After you and Sora left, Shiki crossed the Portal to join Neku. Did you notice Players have a mission timer inscribed on their hands? Well, when she got to the other side, Shiki had more time left on her clock than Neku. And when Rhyme crossed over from the _other_ side, she had _less_ time left.»

_What_? That kind of talk was definitely far-fetched, even if it certainly normal for Joshua to talk like that, even if Riku couldn’t really say he knew the weird boy.

«So what? That can be true of any two worlds. Before we left, Sora told me about a world where he found pirates, and he had felt he had spent _months_ in there and yet he was back to home base in a couple days.» Riku laid down the Dream Pieces he had been assembling on the wall and folded his arms. Maybe Joshua was close to cracking that mystery?

«But if these Traverse Towns were parallel worlds, then time would flow the same in both. But it doesn't, _ergo_ they are not parallel worlds.»

Riku picked up his Dream Eater work again. Just before a big, fat pink cat thingy with a flowery tail started leaping in front of them, he had conjectured that Traverse Town was indeed the same in different times, but Joshua, who was definitely wiser than what his youthful look might suggest, declined that hypothesis, too.

«It's like the same world imagined by two people,» the mysterious kid resolved, scratching the pink critter behind the ear. «What does that tell you? That we're in…»

«… a dream?»

« _Bravo_ , Riku.»

_A dream_? Weren’t they in the Sleeping Worlds, anyway? That theory _really_ seemed out of the world… and yet it looked the only plausible explanation, even to the very Riku.

«… in which case none of this may matter one bit to me or my friends… but to you and Sora, I think it might be a vital clue.»

He stopped cuddling the Dream Eater, who decided to lay its paws on Riku’s knees and begging to be pet. Those weird animals for now were one of the few happy notes in that adventure without rhyme or reason, but Riku couldn’t help having _a very bad feeling about that_.

Yen Sid had never told them they would have been split up, or that their appearance would have changed, or about Ansem appearing at La Citè de Les Cloches and about another Riku with a black coat in the belly of the whale. And the unknown boy who had appeared several times… even Joshua seemed to be wary of him.

If they really were walking into a trap, it would have been almost impossible to communicate with Sora and warn him of the danger. Dream Eaters couldn’t speak, Joshua certainly couldn’t predict when Sora could have shown up again, and Riku couldn’t even know how things were going for his friend. No… he only could go _on_ , and hope for Yen Sid and Mickey to be able to see what was happening.

«Have you thought of a name?» Joshua’s voice distracted from his thoughts.

«Uh?» Riku looked up at him.

«This chonk here. Does he have a name?» Joshua repeated with a grin, pointing at the Flowbermeow.

Riku let himself go and laughed. They were playing that game, after all. On the other hand, if Yen Sid had sent them alone in that task, that meant _he trusted them_.

«You picked it yourself. _Chonk_ it is.»

* * *

Shiro walked the streets of the borough trying not to make any noise. The spell she had found in Yen Sid’s books in her brief period at the tower was definitely handy not to get caught.

_Invisibility_! It had taken her many attempts to learn it, but she had finally mastered it that morning when she had taught a lesson to Bickson, a high-schooler who had tried to steal the younger kids’ lunch munny. She had approached him in silence in the school courtyard, when the students were all gathered before the bell rang, and she had pulled his pants down.

She suspected it could have turned useful to avoid Leon and the “Great Ninja” Yuffie and sneak into the castle to question the computer on Zack’s whereabouts. Leon was _never_ happy at the perspective of Shiro doing “grownup stuff”, but after not being seen by the whole Radiant High and Junior High and giving a schoolyard bully as old as Sora and definitely bigger a taste of his own medicine, well…

“ _I still think your idea sucks,_ ” Conscience pointed out.

Shiro didn’t answer. It was true that many times the voice in her head seemed to be reading her thoughts, and she talked to them mostly out of habit, but had she opened her mouth in that moment, she would have given herself away.

“ _Shiro, I’m serious, let’s get back to Aerith’s. What if there’s Sephiroth on this trail_?”

Sephiroth, _tsk_. Always assuming that he had indeed played a part, as Cloud said, in Zack’s disappearance ten years before, Cloud seemed to have defeated him for good.

She would have _just_ gone to the computer and she would have _just_ asked Ate and Nines to show her what had happened. It was nothing, really, she had done it once with Sora and Mickey. And there was Tron, too, in the computer. Tron was a friend, and Ate and Nines were, too.

“ _You shouldn’t enter the castle alone. Last time you knew Leon was there._ ”

Shiro would have finally opened her mouth to tell Conscience to shut up when voices in the street made her freeze on the spot, fearing someone could actually see her.

But Merlin and Yuffie, along with a red-haired girl Shiro didn’t recognize, walked near her without noticing.

«So now you have a Keyblade, too?» Yuffie asked the girl, who looked slightly younger than her.

The girl nodded, reaching out to show an orange-gold sword with half of the hilt blue like the sea and the edge of the blade adorned with flowers. Yuffie seemed slightly grossed out, but she shrugged it off.

«I hope it’s as lethal as _cute_ ,» she commented. «We have another wielder in town, her name’s Shiro, but Leon’s trying to keep her out of the fights as much as he can. Which is boring as hell, but _hey_ , maybe they’ll pair her up with you once Merlin finishes his Time Forest thingy.»

The other girl looked puzzled, but she dismissed the Keyblade and kept walking.

Unexpectedly, Shiro felt her arm moving by itself and hitting a pile of crates just next to her. Merlin, Yuffie and the new girl turned for the noise, but before the crates could hit the ground, something made them float back up and at their places.

What the heck was Conscience doing? Did they want her to get busted…?

“ _What happened? Who stopped the crates…_?”

«Seriously, who’s the dimwit who piled up those crates? You could have hit me…!» The voice belonged to Yuna, another high-schooler. She was rather _peculiar_ too, as in, other kids said she had fairy blood and she could either go around human-sized or minuscule. Usually, at school, Shiro had always seen her tall, but now she was flying around as a pixie.

At least until she saw the three people standing in front of her, stopped in midair, and fell to the ground on her butt in human form.

«… I know your face!» she said, standing up hastily and pointing at the girl.

«Uhm, Yuna, I _doubt that_.» Yuffie chuckled. «Kairi just got here. She’s from Sora’s world, she’s, like… his best childhood friend?»

Yuna looked from Yuffie to the girl named Kairi, but Shiro wasn’t able to understand if her face showed hope or sadness. Kairi seemed puzzled, but she hinted at an embarrassed grin.

«Uhm… nice to meet you?»

Shiro saw Yuna’s eyes filling with tears. She had probably hoped that Kairi was someone she had known in the past. Aerith was right: the city now looked like what it had once been, but it would have taken a lot of time for Radiant Garden to _be_ the city it had been once again.

Without thinking too much about it, Shiro started running towards the castle, faster and faster, without waiting for Conscience to reveal her position again like they had done with the crates.

The magic making her invisible started fading once she got in the square, but there was no one around.

Probably it had just happened something that had made the Committee and the guards (who for now were Cloud, an old acquaintance of his named Cecil, and Stitch) occupied elsewhere.

Shiro immediately took to the hallways and ran in them until the computer room. Someone had pulled out papers from the desk, and it had happened recently, but apart from that everything looked in order.

Shiro started the computer. _Sora, Donald, Goofy_ was the password.

It was time to do that search.

Space Paranoids, that was how Sora and Leon called that world.

She had been told her clothes would change, but Shiro did not expect the helmet, the glowing Keyblade, and the blue lines on her clothes.

« _Yo, User_!»

A youthful voice squeaked at her, and someone who looked like a boy her age with a round face, ginger hair, and the glowing lines on his clothes forming circles with markings on the inside, ran to her with a wide grin on his face. One of his eyes was covered by some sort of visor.

«I’m Ate! Nice to meet ya! What’s yo name?»

It almost felt _strange_ to think that program was actually Cid’s number eight attempt, but that could be explained, probably, considering he had actually been copied from somewhere else.

«Hi. I’m Shiro.» The girl shyly reached out, but Ate hastily put his arm forward and shook Shiro’s hand before she could actually extend it.

«Come on, Ate, you’ll make her run off!» Another program, with lighter hair, straighter lines on his clothes, and both eyes covered, gave Ate a resigned smile.

«Awww, but Nines…!» Ate loudly complained.

Even without seeing his eyes, Shiro was sure Nines was glaring at Ate.

«Tron told us Users get inside the computer sometimes, but we never actually saw it happening.» Nines seemed the most serious of the two. He almost looked as if he was _weary_ of something, if programs could actually get tired. «You’re looking for something important, aren’t you?»

Shiro started thinking about her answer, but staying serious was rather hard while Ate had started a sort of foolish dance on the spot, first swaying back and forth and left to right, then swinging his arms from left to right and vice versa while keeping one in front of himself and the other at his back. _Just where did they get him_?

«Ate!» Nines reprimanded him.

«Yo?» Ate shrugged. They both looked as if they were kids, but Ate was the only one of the two to act like one.

«You’d never say he’s the best recovery program I’ve met in this life and in the other.» Nines gave him a forced smile, then he looked at Shiro. «I envy him a little. He always was like this.»

Shiro shook the hand Nines held out for her.

«Uh, I wanted to know about a man named Zack. He’s… a friend I lost.»

«ZACK!» Ate started skipping on the spot. «Zack Fair, eleventh grade, in the baseball team until the Radiant High Sports Festival. Had a root canal at age twelve. Started internship at the Radiant Garden City Guards. Disappearance denounced by Nikos and Cass Fair on the day…»

«That was the civil registry.» Nines folded his arms. «There are many areas in the dataspace we haven’t recovered yet, but that will take time. Some kinds of encrypting are way too complicated even for me.»

«Aw come on, dude, don’t say that. You’d give Babu Frik a run for his munny!» Ate smiled again and gave Nines a thumbs-up.

Nines shook his head. «Whoever put his hands on this computer is very, like _very_ smart. Even for a User. They’ve probably been around for a _long_ time, and they wanted to derezz their tracks for good. If I have understood properly how programs function in _this_ world,» his grin turned cynical. «Miss Shiro, we’ll be needing your help.»

* * *

«You sent them _alone_ in the Sleeping Worlds?» Lea couldn’t believe what Yen Sid had just finished saying. Not only he couldn’t talk to Sora because of the test, now he and Riku had been sent to lose everything they knew and start from scratch to become Masters?

He could easily imagine _why_ all the Keyblade wielders had disappeared eleven years before.

He counted to ten in his mind, then took a deep breath. Getting mad at the mad wizard wouldn’t have helped anyone.

«Braig and Xehanort are already who knows where, and Isa probably went after them.»

Yen Sid started caressing his beard.

«You must understand, this examination is in no way how the Mark of Mastery is usually found. However, in light of what they must do next, it was a necessity. If Sora and Riku find the Seven Doors, they will return home with a new power, the Power of Waking.»

Lea clenched his fists. How could that old guy stay still in front of danger? It reminded him way too much of the behavior of Lord Ansem and the city guards while things in Radiant Garden went to the dogs.

Lea clenched his fists. How could that old guy stay still in front of danger? It reminded him way too much of the behavior of Lord Ansem and the city guards while things in Radiant Garden went to the dogs.

«Fine. Let’s get to the reason why I’m here.» He looked up and stared in the sorcerer’s eyes. «If you can officiate an exam, you can also give lessons, can’t you? _I want to learn_.»

Mickey, Donald and Goofy, who had stayed almost in silence until then, jumped on the spot exclaiming a: «WHAT?» at the same time.

«I said I want to learn. Put me to the test.» Lea shrugged. He thanked goodness that Shiro was under Aerith’s wing, as he and his friends had thought years before it would have been the best case scenario, but now he had to get to Sora and Roxas. And he had promised the Justice he’d bring back Isa to him and Finn. And Isa probably knew Zack’s whereabouts. Too many things depended on that leap of faith… and Lea couldn’t just stay still while others risked their lives.

He didn’t have to argue much: an hour later, the three fairies who assisted Yen Sid had teleported him… back to Radiant Garden, in Merlin’s house.

And _Kairi_ , Sora and Riku’s friend, was there with him. And for how she was glaring at him, Lea had serious doubts he’d get out of that training in one piece.

«Merlin, what is _he_ doing here?» Kairi immediately asked.

«Wait. Hang on. I could ask the same question!» Lea folded his arms and looked at the wizard. «Sir, this girl _bites_!»

«Well, just look who’s talking. You kidnapped me!» Kairi immediately replied.

«That wasn’t me!»

«Oh, yeah, Axel?»

«Not Axel!» Lea sighed and dropped his arms and shoulders. «Name’s _Lea_. Got it memorized? Axel was me missing quite the big piece.»

Kairi gave him a death glare, and for a moment Lea felt like a ten-year-old caught red-handed with the hose at the fire station.

Merlin, though, didn’t seemed to be willing to wait and see how the situation could evolve, because he marched to them with two practice swords and a scowl that could rival Kairi’s and shoved the sticks in their hands.

«You two want to come to blows? _Fine_. Do it! But let’s not waste any time!»

Merlin’s enchanted forest was a familiar place, and yet it felt foreign. Probably, the wizard had made that world within a world trying to create an environment that would have put at ease its occupants.

Kairi would have preferred a beach, but she was almost _having fun_ , she had almost forgotten who she was facing. Also because Axel, no, _Lea_ , seemed to be a total failure with a wooden sword in his hand.

He was _almost_ funny.

«Seriously? You look as if you never played with a toy sword as a kid!» Kairi shook her head and laughed. After a particularly skilled parry of her, she had managed to send her opponent’s weapon flying away.

«I lived at the fire station when I was little. Let’s just say I had other stuff to keep me occupied.» Lea rubbed his forehead where a lump was swelling, then went to pick up his weapon. He seemed rather hesitant to open up about his past, and that was the only tale Kairi had heard about his childhood. «My Mom never had any time to pay me attention. But if my Dad caught me where I wasn’t supposed to be… well, I have much more experience in _not being seen_. Didn’t your mother ever tell you anything when you beat up other kids like this?»

«I only have a father.» Kairi shook her head, closed her guard and hit Lea’s side with a slash before he could even react. «And he doesn’t really care about the games I play until I don’t get into trouble.» She raised her stick again and waited for Lea to respond.

«Did you lose your mother?» Lea completely lowered his training weapon.

«Nah… Henry never married at all.» Kairi hinted at a grin. «I was adopted. I was found by fishermen on a small island far from the main one.»

«So, Mr. Henry let his princess be a pirate?» Lea raised his sword again and tried to hit her.

«Not a pirate, mister, you’re talking to the _captain_.» Kairi parried the hit. «Riku and Sora are both older than me, but I could always convince them. We did everything together. The choir, fencing classes in junior high, we sat together at lunch… teachers always _tried_ to split us up.»

«I thought you were fifteen.» Lea raised an eyebrow.

«I’ll be in December. According to my doctor that should be my birthday, so we always celebrated on December 7.»

«We think Shiro was born in December too, but we don’t know the day. When we kept her at Lord Ansem’s castle, we said her birthday was New Year’s Eve.» Lea weighed the stick in his hand, then gave it a twirl. He seemed to be finally learning to move with just one weapon.

Now, if only Kairi could catch up with what she didn’t know about magic…

Dueling with just one weapon had never been Lea’s strength, but now he started realizing why the Ventus kid had carried a training sword everywhere he went.

That wasn’t, though, the hardest part. He felt as if he was betraying his sister’s memory, fraternizing like that with a stranger who bore her name. Maybe she wasn’t the spoiled princess he had thought she was – living with a mayor probably meant she had been brought up lacking almost nothing, but probably she had had as much attention as he had with Grandma judging by her father’s occupation.

He just couldn’t hate her. They were on the same side. _She had been adopted_ , she had lost her parents just like he had lost his own. And they were the fifth wheel of the wagon, both of them.

He didn’t _want_ to hate her. If the last thing he had seen before losing his heart hadn’t been Xehanort – or had he already been Xemnas? – holding his little sister by the wrist while she desperately tried to break free… if Saïx had not sworn up and down the girl was dead, maybe to make him stop projecting on Roxas… Lea could almost see his sister in that girl.

No, he had to stop projecting.

«No offence meant, Lea, but you _suck_.» Kairi commented, making him see stars for the umpteenth time.

He had already believed he had seen Ventus again, in Roxas, and he had recently been confirmed he was wrong, that as it seemed Ventus was somewhere lost in some backwater world and now they had to find him once again. Why would it be different with this Kairi?

A part of him would have wanted to ask her about _before_ she had been adopted. Of when it had been, if there was something she remembered. Of where she was really from.

But he was too afraid of what the girl could tell him.

* * *

Of all places in which Sora had imagined he would end up, he would have never expected to arrive in a world both familiar and _unknown_ , and yet he was there.

He still remembered Tron telling him about ENCOM and Kevin Flynn, and Kevin Flynn had been standing right in front of him, talking about programs and computer rebellions and _it seemed the bad guys had brainwashed the original Tron_ , who now answered to the name Rinzler and did the bad guys’ icky jobs.

According to Flynn, a program _could_ be recovered, but he needed Tron’s source code, which was probably in the hands of Clu, Kevin’s evil program double.

Now Sora and Sam, the _son_ of Flynn, were on his flagship, after their ally Quorra had been captured trying to cause a diversion.

Sora had _never_ been good with computers, what he had been able to do in Radiant Garden had been mostly Tron’s doing, and he couldn’t help being grateful that Sam knew what he was doing. The search for that code, though, was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

«Dad _did_ mention he had received a call from another world once,» Sam commented as they kept looking. «They needed Tron for an OS to regulate a whole city.»

«That’d be Radiant Garden.» Sora pointed out. «I have friends there. Tron was kept a prisoner and I broke him out. And as far as I know he has company now, two programs named Ate and Nines. He’s fine.» He gave Sam a smile. «He deserves to be OK here, too.»

* * *

«This place is worse than the mall forest!» Nines slashed his way with his identity disc through what looked like an expanse of digital debris. Shiro was next to him, hacking at what Nines couldn’t reach with her Keyblade, while Ate was right behind, gathering data and balling them up together.

«But a forest can’t be a mall and a mall can’t be a forest!» Ate contradicted him. «Looks like a dumpster to me. Or a ship graveyard.» He finished assembling a mass of data and turned it into something that made a little sense. «These are guardianship papers, yo. The castle librarian, Edith Hightower, is the legal guardian of minors Lea, age thirteen, and Kairi, age one, as grandmother of the children… I don’t like the word _grandparent_. I know of a grandfather who used to be a real handful, yo. Wanted to derezz my friend, but my friend derezzed him in the end, yo.»

«I thought _you_ were the happy fellow here, Ate.» Nines finished dismantling a mass of data particularly big and started inspecting the pieces.

«I still don’t like grandparents.» Ate took a hand to his chin in a thoughtful way, then he started assembling data pieces once again.

Shiro vaguely remembered what Ate was talking about, probably something Axel had told her. It made sense, if he really had been brought up by his own grandmother.

«It’ll take a User’s lifetime to put this all back together.» Nines took a hand to his forehead. Ate finished assembling the file he was working on, put it on the ground and started his odd dance.

«What is that?» Shiro nudged it with her Keyblade. The file rattled and emitted a sort of screen. A boy who couldn’t be anyone but Cloud ran in a hallway holding a toddler in his arms, and behind him, with a sword as big as he was in his hands… _it was Zack, it was Zack_!

An explosion made walls shake behind them, and a man in black with silver hair and a katana strode in the corridor trying to get them…

«I have a bad feeling about this.» Ate bent down, hands on his knees, staring at the video file. Nines turned to them, a worried look on what was visible of his face.

«Ate, do me a defrag on these.» Nines passed him more data pieces. «I think this thing really stinks.»

Ate turned off the video file he had just reassembled and focused himself on defragging the data Nine had just hacked through. Ate had only put his hands on them, but Shiro saw his only visible eye open wide in what was without a doubt some kind of shock.

«Someone please turn me off…» the program commented as he kept assembling the file, then he held it in front of himself, in both hands, and opened it.

Another screen opened, revealing the computer room. Xehanort was there, the Xehanort of the portrait, the man who had stolen Dad’s face and Ansem’s name.

He was holding what looked like a grey broadsword with a lot of barbs on it.

_And Lea and Isa were standing against a wall._

«Nines, we gotta tell Tron, yo.» Ate started whining. «Nines, we gotta call for Tron. We gotta tell Tron, he was there, Tron’s gotta know, yo…»

“ _Hey, you, fartface!_ ”

A girl in the video had intervened. She was standing with her feet wide in the doorway, a crayon in her hand as if it was an improvised weapon.

“ _Leave my brother alone!_ ” The girl yelled again.

“ _Run, Kairi! RUN!_ ” Lea shouted at her, but the girl seemed to ignore it and lunged at Xehanort in the attempt to hurt him. She actually managed to land a _bite_ on his sword hand before Xehanort seized her by a wrist with his free hand and lifted her up in the air.

_It was her_. The child Saïx had mentioned months before, Axel’s sister, the one who had died. _And Shiro was about to witness her death_.

“ _You coward! Put her down!_ ” Isa snarled, raising his claymore – _he already had it!_ – and trying to counter without harming the kid. Lea, maybe even too scared to speak, grabbed Isa by the wrist and tried to hold him back.

«Shiro. Shiro, are you OK?» Ate put an arm around her shoulders and held her up. «It’s just a video, Shiro, it can’t hurt you.»

«What’s wrong?» Nines asked Ate.

«She’s suffering.» Ate explained in a couple words. «I’ve seen it happen. The general… her brother… that’s what happen when a User sees another User… _gone_.»

Nines raised his visor, revealing sad, weary eyes.

«Ate…»

«I’m a war veteran, too, Nines.» Ate shrugged and hinted at a smile. «We just have different ways to put all that behind us.»

But, on the video screen, Xehanort did not hit the child. He first struck Isa, then Lea, leaving them to fall to the ground like puppets with no strings. Shiro didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t look away. She wondered _how_ Axel had died, if it had been fighting against wielders or against Saïx or _Xehanort had found them again…_

… but Xehanort didn’t hit the child.

He dismissed his sword – _Keyblade_? – and opened a Dark Corridor.

The child screamed, tried to break free, to reach out for the boys’ bodies, somehow, but the man was too strong, too big, for her to wriggle out of his grip.

He tossed her in the dark passage.

«I saw that guy.» Ate furrowed his visible eyebrow. «Users grow, Nines. They grow taller. Maybe…»

Shiro wasn’t listening to him. Axel’s sister. _Axel’s little sister_. She wasn’t dead like Saïx had said!

And _her name was Kairi_. Kairi, like the new wielder in town. Yuna seemed to know her. And why, deep inside her heart, she felt like _she was probably supposed to know that_?

«Shiro, earlier this morning there were some Users…» Ate tried to say, but in that moment the ground beneath their feet – _assuming it was_ – shook violently.

«This is a computer!» Nines took his hands to his helmet, and the lower part of his face showed surprise. «This can’t be an earthquake!» He stayed silent for a moment, then he emitted a surprised gasp. «The file… someone didn’t want us to see it!»

Someone was running towards them… Shiro recognized Tron. But his shape was flickering, a moment before he was wearing Ate’s and Nines’ white and blue garments, then his clothes turned black and his head was completely bare, then in a fraction of a second the white lines on his armor turned red and his face was covered by a mask.

Then everything turned dark.

* * *

Riku opened his eyes.

In front of him, Sam and Quorra’s portal had just closed. There was no sign of Flynn nor Clu, but there was someone, wobbling on the landing pad.

_Rinzler_? He had fallen into the Sea of Simulation… that could have been him… or another Black Guard… but no, Flynn had derezzed Clu’s army…

… a rogue program, maybe? Flynn and Quorra had mentioned some…

No, not a shape… two. White lines, blue shades probably. _Allies_. One of the two, the taller one, had his head bare, chestnut hair wet and floppy on his forehead, his face contracted in a grimace of pain and tiredness, and very few lines on his armor, maybe some sort of T on his upper chest… wait a moment, Riku stood in guard, ready to summon the Keyblade, didn’t Rinzler have that pattern on his clothes?

The other was short, wore a half helmet, was holding the other up… he looked rather lost, and he had blueish-white lines almost everywhere on his clothes, save for his chest… wait a sec, Riku knew that hair… SORA?

He made two steps forward, removed his helmet, started waving at the two.

«SORA!» he yelled. Was he really there, or was he a vision like in Traverse Town? Would Sora hear him?

_Sora had a start._ He looked up.

«Riku! Riku is here!»

He had seen him, but he didn’t run to him. He walked slightly faster, still holding his companion, then he let him to rest against a pillar, making sure he was fine. Riku ran to him, holding back the instinct to hug him tight.

He didn’t have to hold back for long: Sora immediately put his arms around him and squeezed him tight until he knocked the air out of his lungs.

«Are you OK?» Riku asked him, almost out of breath.

Sora let him go, grinned again and folded his arms behind his head.

«Never been better!»

He turned serious for a moment.

«Tron here fell in the Sea of Simulation. I dove in to get him, but my clothes lost some of the lights.»

«Hm. So he’s Tron.» Riku gave a look to the program Sora had rescued.

«Yeah. There was a flash and… I really don’t know what happened.»

«On your side. What was going on?» Riku asked him again. He didn’t know how could have Sora gotten there – maybe he had touched the Sea of Simulation or something.

«Well, Sam and I were looking for Flynn’s disc, and also Tron’s source code. Then Xemnas blocked my way, along with another hooded guy I didn’t recognize.» Sora scratched his hair where the helmet wasn’t covering them. «We got split, Sam and I. After Xemnas, Rinzler came for me. Or well, Rinzler was Tron, but I was certain he still was Tron deep down in his heart, and turns out I was right. We were fighting just outside the ship, and then there was this flash and Tron fell, and I dove…»

«Xemnas, you said?» All of Sora’s speech was one of his usual tales without rhyme or reason, but that name was enough to put Riku on alert.

«Yeah. And in Notre Dame there was a boy. He had my face, but his hair was black and his eyes were yellow.»

Riku stiffened. His encounter with another _self_ in the belly of the whale was still fresh in his mind.

«I’ve seen Ansem at the Cathedral. Xehanort’s Heartless,» he confessed to Sora. «And I talked to Joshua in Traverse Town, and he thinks I could have been in a dream within a dream. They’re trying to lure us into a trap, I don’t know how but I don’t think they are planning for us to clear this test.»

«Should we talk to Joshua again?» Sora turned thoughtful. «If we can get to him…»

«Good idea. He’s the only one who seems to know what’s going on.»

« _If_ he knows something.» Sora pulled a face. «Looks like this world wasn’t even supposed to be sleeping, and yet Dream Eaters are here.»

Considering their look, Riku asked himself how plausible could be the old joke about robots dreaming of electric sheep. But it wasn’t the time for questions like that.

If Ansem and Xemnas, the mysterious man and Sora’s and Riku’s dark doppelgangers were somewhere out there, that meant the split of three worlds before had been done on purpose, to isolate them, and that also explained why Joshua and his friends could cross the portals despite they didn’t belong to Traverse Town.

Sora gave Tron a worried look. If Riku knew him well enough, he didn’t want to leave him, but if those worlds were closed in a loop like Yen Sid had said, repeating the same story again and again, there was very little his best friend could have done to help the program.

«Sora, let’s go, he’ll be fine.» He put a hand on his shoulder. «We have to find out why we’re together now. They can’t have aborted that plan for nothing.»

«What can I say? Maybe they _finally_ noticed we’re too strong for them!» Sora chuckled.

Riku shook his head. He doubted that even Yen Sid had enough patience to keep up with that boy, sometimes.

«Do you remember how Shiro’s parents disappeared? And they were _adults_ , Sora. Xehanort took them out, and their friend Ventus then had _my age_. No, Sora, it wasn’t us who got rid of them. _They just let us go…_ and if they really did, we have to find out _why_.»

Riku had a clue.

_He hoped he was wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone of you (save for Shyrstyne who saw a sketch) guess who Ate and Nines were? One more little clue: Ate is Disney and Nines is Square Enix.
> 
> (While translating, I inspired Ate's speech to Monster Kid from Undertale. I felt like he kinda fit with the character. Also, the "yo" is a nod to one of the sounds the original character makes.)


	9. Link to One, Link to All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter before the end of The Journey - and the beginning of The Guardians! The plot thickens, but of course it does... and shout-out to a Twitter discussion with Shyrstyne who gave me (Beater) an idea.  
> This chapter was rather hard to write, and Miraha and I discussed a lot about it, even introducing some scenes we weren't supposed to put so soon... but we think that was worth it!

« _All for one, hey! All for one and one for all! So, if you think you’d care to kick some derriere, you know that as a musketeer you’d be so fearsome!_ »

Sora was still singing and tapping his foot on the ground when the world around him and Riku came into focus again. He was still clutching his friend’s hand, like every time they had dove to another world, fearing they’d get split up again.

Especially Riku looked really nervous, but, next to him, Sora saw him smile.

Had they made it?

“ _If you meant that as a question, Sora, NO WAY_.” Roxas’s voice, after a silence that seemed to have lasted a lifetime, echoed in Sora’s head.

A moment later, Riku had a start.

«Sora, your clothes!»

The boy looked down. Ever since they had left the Grid, the white X on his t-shirt had disappeared, leaving just plain black fabric, but now something else had appeared.

The same emblem Riku had on his back.

«I think Yen Sid owes us an explanation or two.» Sora lifted up the hem of his t-shirt.

But the place they found themselves in wasn’t the Tower, or Twilight Town. The black, starless sky, the impersonal buildings, black walls and wiry neon lights, the heavy air of a coming storm…

«Please, tell me you recognize this place,» Riku worriedly commented.

«The World that Never Was.» Sora stepped forward. «Or what’s left of it, I mean.»

The memory of that place was still etched deeply in Sora’s mind, like the holes left in the skin after the removal of stitches from a wound. And, in Riku’s case, that could really be like it, because even if the wound Xemnas had provoked him, courtesy of Donald Duck, had needed no suture, Sora had seen his oldest friend wincing every now and then when he worked too hard or he got pressed or pushed on his side.

In the Sleeping Worlds, he had seemed not to suffer at all, but…

«One way to find out we’re still in or out.» Sora approached Riku even more. «I’m very, _absolutely_ sorry.»

He elbowed Riku hard in the spot in which he had been wounded. Riku didn’t even flinch, but he looked at Sora in a very perplexed way.

«We’re still in the dream.» Sora sighed.

«Yeah. Now… do you remember Joshua’s theory? The dream within a dream?» Riku made a few steps towards the abandoned city. There was a sort of hallway, or maybe an alley, in front of them. Sora followed him without thinking. «That means one of us was in the other’s dreams.»

«Aw, come on, Riku, I’m no fool, _no sirree_.» Sora ran behind him when the older boy sped up. Around them, a pack of Nightmares appeared, and Riku immediately summoned his Keyblade, while Sora did the same. Some seemed an odd mix between dragon and goose, and others would have looked a lot like Rexy, the Tyranto Rex Sora and Riku had created together, but looked more like skeletons rather than a live dinosaur.

«Get ‘em, Rexy!» Riku ordered the dinosaur to defend them from attackers. Sora did the same with Chonk, who immediately appeared by his side.

It wasn’t that hard. Not after the Spellican and Chernabog. Together, Sora and Riku could have made mincemeat of anything, so Sora wasn’t too surprised when Riku, after a Balloonga, restarted his speech about dreams.

«Ever since we’re together, we haven’t dropped at all.» He explained, vanquishing a Nightmare. «It was hard to know who was within the other’s dreams, assuming one of us was.» He casted a Shadow Breaker on one of the “dragon geese”. «But the emblem on your clothes is the same of Rexy and Chonk. And the same on my jacket, if your description of some worlds ago matches.»

«So, what’s the deal?» Sora dodge rolled and started spinning around one of the skeletons. «Buzz off, you!» He tossed the Nightmare away.

Riku got rid of the last enemy and started picking up the Dream pieces the Nightmares had dropped. He started looking around for any road to follow, but they seemed to have ended up in a blind alley.

«It means we’re in someone else’s dream, Sora.» The boy announced. «The question, now, is…»

He didn’t finish the sentence. He swayed on the spot, taking a hand to his head. Sora felt his eyelids getting heavy and _understood_ – they both were about to drop.

As his eyes started closing, he struggled to stay awake. What if Riku disappeared again?

He sprinted forward, reaching for his friend, something took his hand and Sora recognized Riku’s grip, _they wouldn’t split them again_ , but in whose dreams were they, now?

Who was waking up?

* * *

Shiro opened her eyes.

It was still dark, but it certainly wasn’t Space Paranoids. And her clothes were _hers_ once again, Sora’s old jacket over the grey t-shirt and purple skirt, and her leggings and the black belts forming an X over her skirt.

«Ate…? Nines…?» she tried asking, but somehow she knew she’d get no answer.

What had just happened? It almost felt like some weird kind of dream. Had she fallen asleep? She didn’t remember doing that…!

«… what is this place?» she mumbled, looking around.

“ _Stay sharp, Shiro_.” Conscience immediately warned her. “ _Someone must have hacked Space Paranoids or something._ ”

Shiro summoned her Keyblade, without stopping looking around. She recognized that city… she had seen it many times, from a distance, from the windows of the castle…

That was the City that Never Was. The World that Never Was.

But it was falling apart.

«Oh, is something wrong, Sunshine?»

Shiro would have recognized that voice even with her ears plugged. Rage swelled in her stomach. _Xigbar_.

«Where are you, moldy odd sock?» Shiro raised her Keyblade and looked around in search of the man.

«We jumped through a lot of hoops to get Sora here… imagine our surprise when we saw _you_ connecting with the Grid while he was trying to recover that series of zeroes you guys call Tron!» Xigbar’s voice kept echoing from somewhere above her.

“ _Was this a trap for Sora…? So now where is he…?_ ” Conscience replied.

«… but it looks as if it's gonna pay off!»

A purple bullet hit the concrete a few centimeters away from Shiro’s feet. Xigbar was on top of a building, his guns pointed at her.

He leapt off the skyscraper and stopped in midair, then nonchalantly floated to the floor with a sneer on his disfigured face. He looked like a few weeks before, before Shiro burned off his hair.

“ _Shiro, stay sharp, I beg you, please do. There’s something that stinks_.” Conscience kept repeating her.

Xigbar finally landed and had a start. He was almost surprised.

«Well, look what the Chirithy dragged in!» His sneer grew even wider. «And I only thought our Sunshine only had the oddest imaginary friend… and you’re really _here_ after all, _whiz kid_.»

“ _How… what…?_ ” Conscience almost swore, and Shiro felt their anger and surprise.

« _I can hear you_!» Xigbar sing-sung in a mocking way. «We’re in the world of dreams, boy! We brought you to this place! Hijacked all this little slumber party! Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize your voice after all this time?»

“ _You piece of…!_ ” Conscience hissed, and Shiro found herself snarling the same words.

«You did try to get away. And yet you’re here once again!» The monocle stared at Shiro with his ugly eye. «Oh, isn’t that _poetic_? What can I say?, destiny is never left to chance!»

The girl would have only wanted to gouge that yellow eye of his, or even just burn a bald patch on him again. She had hoped the Organization was gone for good, and instead they were alive and kicking… and what if it had been them who had harmed Axel after he had saved her?

That actually could make sense.

«What did you do to Axel?» Shiro yelled at the Nobody. «I know it was you!»

«Us? _As if!_ »

Xigbar disappeared. Before she could see him reappearing, a flurry of bullets narrowly missed Shiro, forming a circle around her. The thirteen slugs, embedded in the concrete, turned into Black Coats.

One of them reached out, and everything became dark.

The world around her lit up again, and she recognized the inside of a Dark Corridor.

Dusks and Assassins came from everywhere, but… _Sora_! That was Sora over there! And Donald and Goofy were with him!

«SORA! Over here!» Shiro waved and ran at him, but the boy ignored her as if she was invisible. And it wasn’t just him… even Nobodies weren’t aware of her presence.

«Don't stop moving, or the darkness will overtake you!» Axel ran to them, chakrams in his hands. He immediately sided with Sora, fighting as if he was…

“ _As if he was protecting Roxas,_ ” Conscience suggested her. “ _He’s defending Roxas_!”

It was when Sora yelled: «Why are you doing all of this?» Shiro realized it wasn’t really _him_ speaking. That wasn’t his voice.

The two were getting slowly surrounded, and Shiro tried to summon her Keyblade, to slash at the Nobodies, but her blade simply passed through them as if they had been nothing but ghosts or illusions. Axel was saying something to Sora, but his words were almost covered by the noise of the battle.

«Kairi’s in the castle dungeon. At my signal, run.»

Axel stood in a guard position, gritted his teeth, his face was the one of someone ready to fight to the bitter end. There was a _fury_ in his eyes Shiro had never seen before.

She didn’t even know if a Nobody _could_ feel furious.

Then the air exploded around him.

* * *

«… Sora?»

The boy opened his eyes. His hand was still in Riku’s.

«Someone else has fallen asleep.» Riku stated, looking around. «As I was saying earlier, we have to find out _who_ they are.»

They were not alone. There was the sound of steps approaching, and a figure cloaked in black stopped in front of them.

« _Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it_.»

There was something strangely familiar in the stranger’s voice. Riku even _flinched_ , as if something about it had scared him.

The stranger walked towards them again. His yellowish eyes showed scorn and defiance, but looking at his face, Sora saw _himself_.

«You! You were at the Cathedral!» he yelled at him.

«We haven’t ever met in the flesh.» The stranger who looked like Sora smirked. «I am Vanitas.»

«This is the part where you spout some mumbo jumbo and disappear, right?» Sora snarled.

«He was waiting for us.» Riku put a hand in front of Sora to try to hold him back.

«Looks like the madman in the wizard hat has high hopes for you two,» Vanitas stayed still as he kept looking defiantly at them. « _Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it_.» He repeated again, then he stayed in silence for a moment. «The question is, who’s gonna save _you_?»

Riku stepped sideways, standing between Sora and Vanitas.

«What makes you think we need saving?» He gestured at him with his hand, and for a moment Sora thought about that night at Destiny Islands. Now the roles had been reversed.

Vanitas did not move, but he looked first at Riku and then at Sora, then he started laughing, an almost _cruel_ sound, without joy. Riku in particular seemed disturbed by it… and it was then Sora understood. He didn’t share only the face with that boy… _their voice was the same, too_.

Had Ariel felt like that when Ursula had tried to deceive Prince Eric with the voice the witch had extorted from her?

«So these worlds actually put you two in good _spirits_ , huh?» Vanitas took something from a pocket and started playing with it. For a moment Sora’s heart went up to his throat, he seemed to recognize Kairi’s good luck charm… but no, he had that in his pocket, he could feel its weight on his pants… and that object in his dark double’s hands was stained glass…

… but Riku flinched, again.

« _Where did you get that_?» he hissed.

«Oh, I see you do know what it is.» Vanitas looked at Riku, his smirk getting wider. «Let’s see if you guess it right… whose is this thingy?»

«Riku… whose is that?» Sora put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

«Shiro. _They have Shiro_. It’s hers!» Riku answered.

“ _Shiro_?” Roxas’s voice echoed in Sora’s head, and his arms and legs moved without him ordering them to.

«LET SHIRO GO, YOU POOR EXCUSE FOR A CLONE!» Roxas started using Sora’s vocal cords for yelling.

«Oh, I guess the prison isn’t holding too well.» Vanitas pretended to swat a fly away, while he still held the glass star in the other hand. «Such a _shame_ there’s no way out for anyone of you, now. You’re in a Nightmare within a Nightmare, you little Spirits, and you’ll soon get devoured.»

He dangled for one last time the glass star by its string, then he caught it in his fist and clenched it hard.

_CRUNCH_.

Vanitas opened his hand, and pieces of lead and glass fell to the ground, clinking one last time before he kicked them at Sora and Riku.

«You _FREAK_!» Riku yelled at him.

«Yeah, that’s what the lady Master told me too. After I smashed into pieces her friend’s _stupid_ toy…» Vanitas started talking, but Sora no longer paid heed to him. A sort of _rage_ was bubbling up in him, something he didn’t feel as his, but belonging to someone else. _And it wasn’t Roxas_.

Something made Sora raise his arm, and Counterpoint came to his hand, but the blade was facing backwards, and his guard pose felt very unfamiliar to him.

«Who did you call _stupid_ , you piece of dark rubbish?» Someone spoke with Sora’s voice. Someone made him twirl the Keyblade in his hand.

After the initial surprise, Vanitas smirked again.

« _Ventus!_ » he exclaimed triumphally. «What a _strange_ place to slither off to… _you insignificant speck_.»

He approached them, trying to grab Sora by his clothes, but Riku tackled him aside.

«Don’t you dare touch him!» he hissed.

«Or else?» Vanitas shook Riku off and raised his hand in front of himself. A Keyblade made of gears and chains materialized in his fist.

Riku summoned _his own_ Counterpoint and tried to counterattack, but he swayed on the spot, and the world was dark once again.

And the last thing Sora thought before he lost consciousness was… _what had just happened_?

* * *

“ _Shiro… Shiro, open your eyes!_ ”

They were in The World That Never Was again, in front of the skyscraper that covered the sight of the Castle.

And there were two boys on the stairs in front of it.

«How… what…?» Shiro mumbled.

“ _Careful. I think we’re still in the dream._ ” Conscience pointed out.

Shiro approached the two, who seemed busy in some kind of conversation. They both looked in their early twenties or something, and wore black uniforms with suspenders and baggy pants. One was dark-haired, the other blond, and they both carried weapons.

«Hello?» walked slowly and warily, trying to identify the two.

«Saïx told me the spot is this one.» The taller boy, the one with raven hair, stuck his sword in a fissure in the stairs and leaned against it. «It’s a matter of time.»

The other, with golden hair and looking childlike and lost, was still sitting on the steps and staring at the street as if Shiro wasn’t there at all.

“ _These things already happened._ ” Conscience stated. “ _It’s the past we’re seeing. Like earlier with Axel and Sora._ ”

Shiro couldn’t help having a bad feeling about those words. Her worries were even more well-founded when she was close enough to the two boys, she finally saw their faces.

The sitting one was _Cloud_. His gaze was almost vacant and the clothes hung loosely on him, and there was a red blanket on his shoulders, but that was him, of course that was him! And the other… he was older than he had looked in the pictures, but… Zack! That was Zack!

Then he _had_ survived Sephiroth…

A loud thud made both Shiro and the boys turn. That had probably happened in the past, at least because of their reaction.

From an alley behind the skyscraper, a figure wearing black was tossed in the plaza. They raised themselves on their elbows, looking at the alley from whence they came. The hood fell off, and it was then Shiro recognized Saïx. He was trying to get back to his feet, but he looked too much the worse for wear.

His face was slashed by two angry red burn marks, right between his eyes.

“ _So that’s when…_?” Conscience commented as Zack and Cloud sprang to their feet.

Before they could reach Saïx, another Nobody floated in front of him, pointing at him a red ethereal blade.

«Xemnas…» Shiro murmured as the newcomer took off his hood with his free hand.

Cloud didn’t flinch, but Zack _did_. His face turned white with terror.

«No… _this can’t be_!» he panted, looking as if he had just seen a ghost. «Not you too… not you… _Terra_ …»

«Run, Zack, RUN!» Shiro went to him, trying to drag him away by grabbing his arm, but her fingers clenched nothing but air. She could imagine how that story had gone. «Go away… _please_ …» She took her hands to her head. «Stop it… stop this nightmare! What do you want…? You took my friends from me… STOP IT!»

Cloud tried to attack Xemnas with a standard guards’ sword, but the Nobody conjured a bundle of thorns, tossing the boy away and sending him flying against a wall of the skyscraper.

Seeing his friend in trouble, Zack raised _his own_ sword, three times bigger than his friend’s, but Xigbar suddenly materialized in front of him.

He had shorter hair, like some years before… that was _past_ Xigbar.

«Looks like someone here has _finally_ connected the dots, haven’t we, _Fair_?» he sneered. Arrowguns appeared in his hands, and he pointed one at the boy’s head.

«Where. Are. AQUA AND VENTUS?» Zack bellowed, and if looks could have killed, Xigbar would have been ash in that very moment. He slashed at Xigbar with his sword, but the sniper teleported himself to safety.

Xemnas and Saïx were gone.

«TELL ME, YOU BASTARD!» Zack yelled, and ran at the one-eyed man again with his sword held up.

Xigbar vanished again, but around them, Snipers had started filling the empty square from the alleys. Zack attacked one more time, and one more time, Xigbar disappeared.

Then the Snipers took aim.

«ZACK!» Shiro tried to run to him… to warn him, to use her Keyblade, _anything_ … but it was no use, it had all already happened, it had all already happened _years before_ and _what could she have done_?

She no longer felt the ground beneath her feet, and everything went dark and she was _falling_ …

… and she could hear a voice screaming her name.

“ _Shiro, don’t let them get you. They’re trying to make you mad… they’re trying to make you go…_ ” Conscience kept repeating, but Shiro was much more focused on what was happening around her.

_She fell_.

She landed on her backside, on a beach covered in black sand.

* * *

Riku woke up with Sora shaking him.

«You really got me scared!» His friend hugged him tight as soon as he saw Riku opening his eyes.

«Sorry…» Riku could barely mumble, but he had to admit the last minutes had been a bloody _mess_ for him.

That Vanitas boy. He looked _just like Sora_. He even had his same voice, even if it sounded rather hoarse.

«I found a way. A path that was blocked by a wall before.» Sora let him go and pointed at a gap between two buildings Riku didn’t recall seeing earlier. He approached it: the passage took to a high terrace, that led to a high point of the ruined castle.

«Well, what are we waiting for?» Riku walked the recently opened pathway. Sora ran after him.

A single, large pipe took to the top of a tower, crowned by eight vertical pillars, high and sharp, like pencils, and the two boys jumped on it and started sliding.

Shiro was on top of the tower.

She was asleep, in an eerie bubble surrounded by a black mist.

«Shiro!» Sora ran to her, trying to shake her awake. It had to be Roxas controlling him, but for a moment, ice expanded in Riku’s guts, and he egoistically thought _he was lucky_ because _Sora was supposed to be sleeping in there_ and not Shiro and if only Riku thought about it…

«I think she’s having visions!» Sora turned to Riku and pointed at images floating in the black mist surrounding the girl. «I’ve seen me… and Axel… and Cloud with another boy… and what’s with DiZ over there?»

Riku approached Sora and Shiro, and tried to wake the girl up. She didn’t seem to be moving at all… if she hadn’t been breathing, she would have been just as motionless as a doll.

«Come on, Shiro, open your eyes!» Sora called her.

«Wake up, Shiro, you’re in a nightmare!» Riku tried to help him, but at a point Sora looked behind him and stopped calling and shaking the child.

«Riku…» Sora pointed at somewhere behind Riku’s back. The boy turned: the black mist was leaving the bubble, and a humanoid figure had materialized in the point where the mist had gathered.

It almost looked like a Nobody, an Organization member, but the similarities ended with its shape: under the hood, red eyes glowed on a dark face, and the sleeves and the rims of the coat were splashed in purple.

«Are you what’s trapping her in that nightmare?» Riku faced the new enemy, while Sora immediately sided with him.

They both summoned their weapons.

«Well, say your prayers, _Nightmare_ , because we’ll be yours!» Sora finished his sentence.

* * *

Shiro walked among sand and rocks.

What was that place? Why was she there?

“ _If I know Xigbar, or whatever name he goes by today, he’s trying to make you as angry as he can_.” Conscience intervened for a moment. “ _Careful._ ”

Shiro hardly paid attention to him. _Zack was dead_. Xigbar’s minions had shot him dead. What could have been worse than that? _What else could have they done to her_?

She had tried to be _useful_ for the Garden, and the only thing she had managed to obtain was getting _lost_ , and with the worst piece of news to bring home.

Assuming she would get home.

«What is your question?»

_DiZ_ ’s voice? What was DiZ, of all people, doing there?

Shiro immediately ran ahead, in the direction from which she had heard him speaking. She had never felt _anything_ for that crazy old man, so why _him_ now?

«Where did you put the girl?» Another man’s voice was interacting with the old loon. Someone to whom Shiro could not give a name… but _the voice was familiar_.

Three people in front of her.

Two wore black coats.

The third…

«If you won’t tell me here…» the voice of the younger man turned threatening. If Shiro did not recognize his voice… she did recognize _his face_ : it was the Apprentice Xehanort, the man Stitch had believed to be her father.

He was abruptly interrupted.

«I think you should go.»

It was a woman’s voice. She was standing between DiZ and the Apprentice, and had swatted the latter’s hand away with her own.

The Apprentice looked down at her.

«A lost Guardian of Light?»

« _SON OF A SNIPE!_ » Conscience seemed _seriously_ scared, at that point. But Shiro paid no heed to him, that woman’s hair, _her voice_ , she remembered who she was, she had been dreaming about her for _years_ at night…!

« _Mom_!»

Shiro ran faster… her Mom was there… a few steps away… that couldn’t be a nightmare!

A huge dark shadow emerged at the Apprentice’s back, tossing Mom backwards with a fist. She fell on her feet. Shiro tried to reach her, but just like with Zack she could not touch her hand.

«Where is your Keyblade?» The Apprentice defiantly asked her.

«I should be the one asking questions here.» Mom didn’t flinch, and didn’t stop staring at the man. «Where’s Shiro? What are you doing to her?»

«So _now_ you worry about her.» The Apprentice mocked her. «Isn’t she supposed to be almost thirteen already? She spent a _lifetime_ without you.»

«You lousy…» Shiro gritted her teeth. How could that… that bloody… say something like that? Mom was in danger… how could she help her? _She couldn’t help her!_

To Shiro’s surprise, Mom took a hand to the ribbons on her clothes and drew a small, blue star-shaped stained-glass piece.

«I never stopped thinking about her for a moment in all this time,» she defiantly replied. «but _what I know_ is that Shiro will never give in to the Darkness to help you!»

She put back the star in her clothes and raised her arms in a guard stance. «You may have her in your clutches, but be assured I’ll come and take her back with my bare hands, if it comes to this!»

She ran at the Apprentice, trying to attack him. The shadow behind him grabbed her by the leg and lifted her up, but DiZ immediately begged the Apprentice to stop.

As soon as she was let go, Mom tried to hit the Apprentice again, putting herself back in a guard stance after the first failed attack.

«Poor thing. I mustn’t leave you with nothing.» The Apprentice gave her a sneer.

The shadow monster behind him charged a huge purple beam from a heart-shaped hole in his chest.

It shot at her.

Mom fell in the dark sea.

«Mom… MOM!» Shiro fell to her knees. She felt her eyes swelling with tears and she was shaking so had she couldn’t stand up properly. She hardly noticed the two men in black leaving… Mom had been struck by that monster and it had happened because _she was coming for her_. Was Shiro really to blame for what had happened?

«Stop it… stop it…! I want her back… I want my Mom back!»

Heavy steps sank in the sand behind her.

«You’re too late, ‘Shroom.» Xigbar mocked her. «It all happened hardly an hour ago. I’m just showing you what just transpired.»

«You… you…» Shiro raised a hand and her Keyblade appeared in her grip. She used her other hand to stand up again and she turned to Xigbar. «GIVE HER BACK!»

Her sight was blurred by tears, but she didn’t care… Xigbar had to suffer. He had to vanish again for what he had done… Axel, Zack, Mom… he had to _die_.

She sprinted at him, but Xigbar vanished.

«Too slow!» His voice came from behind her, along with a couple of purple bullets that embedded themselves in the sand.

«SHUT UP!» Shiro lunged at him again. Xigbar disappeared and reappeared upside down, over the surface of the black waters.

Shiro casted a Fire and tossed it at him, but he immediately dodged it.

At that point, Shiro didn’t think. She raised up her Keyblade and ran to the water’s edge, she leapt…

… and she _missed._

She thought she would land in the shallows, but her feet didn’t find the ground. She was sinking. _She was sinking and she couldn’t swim_ , and the sea around her was getting blacker and she heard Xigbar cackling above her and she tried the best she could to struggle, to get to the surface, but she kept falling…

“ _Don’t give up, Shiro!_ ”

«She can’t hear you, kiddo…»

* * *

«Sora… can I confess you something?»

They had just reappeared in front of the Memory Skyscraper, _in the real world again_ , even if still wearing the Spirit emblem on their clothes.

The Nightmare keeping Shiro prisoner was gone, but she had sunk in too deep to wake up, and Ansem – Xehanort’s Heartless – had attacked them. It hadn’t been a challenge for Sora and Riku together, they knew how he fought, and Riku had almost cried when the huge shadow always behind the Heartless had extended one of his huge hands towards him as they vanished.

«Go on.» For a moment, Sora dared to hope Riku would have asked him something _important_ … something like the thing _he_ had to confess to him – but what about Kairi then? Such a reveal could have ruined their friendship forever… and Sora really _couldn’t_ say of which one of his two friends he was fonder. They were even. If someone ever asked him to pick one…

«Do you remember when we were kids? Those summer days when strangers came to the Islands?»

Sora shrugged. The year when he had started kindergarten and Riku had turned six in the fall? Easy for him to say that, he was the one who had started first grade…

«I do remember… the blue lady?» he murmured.

«Well, she wasn’t the only one. There had been another before her.» Riku pointed at the road leading to the Castle that Never was and kept walking. «And you turned into a _royal pain_ for days because you wanted to know the secret he told me!»

«Did I?» Sora cocked his head. «Oh, come _on_!» He laughed. «What did he tell you, by the way?»

Riku stopped for a moment, stared at him, and slapped him on his neck. He was laughing, too.

«For a start, not to say _a word_ to dummies like you, or the magic would be gone.» He started walking again. «I wanted to be strong. So strong I could protect the people I love. He made me touch his own Keyblade and performed a sort of bequeathing, and he told me we’d meet again one day.»

They were at the Edge of Despair, and only the bottomless chasm over which, only days before, Kingdom Hearts had evoked a bridge now separated them from the castle.

«I only found out some days ago he was Shiro’s father. And that I was probably the last person who saw him.»

His eyes had gotten misty again.

«Don’t you fear you broke it now? His promise?» Sora asked him. Riku was still looking at the castle, but then he looked down at the chasm.

When he turned to face Sora, tears were streaming down his face.

«I almost lost you two because I wasn’t brave enough to come clear to you.» He wiped at his face with an arm. «You and Kairi… you’re much more important to me than a special power… and that probably was a white lie that had been told to me to protect the world order.»

He sighed and looked at the Castle once more.

«Fine. We have to find a way to get up there.»

Sora looked up, too. There was something making noise, and a purple dot somewhere on the lower floors of the castle. Wait… wasn’t that…?

«Chonk! Over there, Riku, there’s Chonk!» Sora patted his friend’s back, then he pointed at the spot where he had seen the Flowbermeow.

«What are they doing over there?» A smile appeared on Riku’s face. «Well… it doesn’t matter.» He took two fingers to his mouth and whistled. Komory Bat ( _why hadn’t he named him_?) appeared on his shoulder.

«What’s the big plan?» Sora stepped backwards and scratched the back of his head.

«You once told me Kingdom Hearts made a bridge when you and the King came here the first time.» Riku summoned his Keyblade. «And in Paris we could make a line between two Nightmares, couldn’t we?»

«Yeah, so what?»

«Well…» Riku pointed his Keyblade on Komory Bat, who started glowing, then he pointed it away, towards Chonk. «What about two Spirits?»

He lowered his Keyblade, and the light Komory Bat emitted created a line that reached the castle, up to the point Chonk was rolling on the floor and staring at them.

«Let’s go!» He took a run-up and jumped on the line.

Sora waited for a moment, then he did the same. It was even _funnier_ than crossing the translucent bridge of before, and despite the situation wasn’t the best, Sora couldn’t help feeling happy.

Riku had said _you and Kairi are important_ , he had mentioned both of them, he had said _they mattered more than his childhood promise_.

Riku was the first to get to the other side, jump off the line, and thank Chonk with some cuddles, then he turned to wait for Sora.

«What’s that smile?» he commented once Sora had jumped off.

«Nothing.» Sora shrugged. «I… I love ya.»

* * *

Kairi stretched on her chair. It had been a _tiring_ day and she hoped she could get news from Sora and Riku as soon as possible. Lea had mentioned trouble, but he hadn’t said too much about it. He didn’t seem very _enthusiast_ about sharing news with her, but why?

«If that was your best for today, you can be certain you’ll stay in the Time Forest for quite a long time!» Kairi started taunting him.

«Ha, ha, _ha_.» Lea sat on another chair, leaning his chest on the backrest. «I’ve seen twelve-year-olds casting better Fires than you!»

«Well, at least I did things with _this_.» Kairi raised her hand and summoned her Keyblade. «You know, like, kicking Xigbar butt? You know? The ugly one-eyed wretch.»

«Urgh, _please_ don’t mention him. I may vomit and we still have to dine.» Lea rolled his eyes. « _Xigbar_. He’s always been ugly vermin. Even when I was a poor high-schooler and he still was known as Braig the royal guard. My friends and I were playing baseball in the square one weekend, and he tried to get us into trouble just because the ball _accidentally_ fell on his head.»

He gave Kairi a glance, almost as if he wanted her to ask more about it. He almost got _sad_ when she remained in silence.

Lea sighed and slumped on the backrest.

«When I woke up in Ansem’s castle, for a moment I had almost hoped I could have taken back my life. I was rather unlucky as a kid, but now I look back… what I wouldn’t give to have my family again, my friends and the worries I had… what I wouldn’t give…»

Somehow, Kairi could understand him. Years before, she had tried to connect the dots on her previous life looking for clues on the clothes in which she had been found. And it had been her who had convinced Sora and Riku to build the raft, only to regret having done so the following year, in which several times she had hoped and prayed she could have had back the life that before had seemed boring.

«Let’s just say, the wisdom of hindsight.» Kairi commented.

«I would do it all again… everything my heart guided me to do.» Lea straightened his back, then smiled. Kairi smiled in return.

«I would have liked to know the kid you were.»

Someone knocked at the door, then opened it immediately later, and Kairi recognized Aerith in the doorway. She was about to say hello, but the young woman spoke immediately.

«Shiro? Shiro, are you in here?» she called once she was inside. Lea opened his eyes wide and stared at her.

«Uhm… there’s only Lea and I in here.» Kairi embarrassedly admitted. «To be honest, I don’t even know what Shiro looks like.»

«Aw, c’mon, Aerith, drop the prank!» Lea stood up and walked to the door, trying to look behind her. «Isn’t she about to jump from behind that corner and yell _surprise_?»

Aerith _glared_ at Lea. She definitely looked worried.

«This is not a prank, Lea! No one saw her ever since she left school at three!»

All color seemed to immediately fade from the young man’s face.

« _Xehanort…_ » he hissed.

He furrowed his eyebrows, then he marched outside.

«Kairi… I’m going to get Shiro.» He announced. «You stay here, patrol the borders. Be ready to raise the alarm if you see any kind of Dark Corridor opening, and should anything attack, make good use of that key you have. I’ll be back soon, and Shiro will be with me.»

He started opening a Dark Corridor, probably to vanish in it, but Kairi rushed out of the door and grabbed his wrist.

«Oh no you don’t. I’m coming with you!»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So YEAH, KH3 plot points anticipated! Let's be honest, did anyone of you expect Vanitas? And Conscience is an actual person, but who is he after all? - and yeah, of course Xigbar had to know him. Also, of course Xigbar is an asshole, it's written on his resume as life skill!
> 
> And Lea really has no clue... oh man if you only spoke...


	10. The End of Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, this "journey" is over too! I'm already going to get a shelter somewhere because, well, reasons, reasons.

Lea emerged from the Dark Corridor and immediately casted a flare in front of himself to avoid the dark bullet.

Had he made it?

He had.

He heard Xigbar’s voice yelling at _Axel_ and he waited for the smoke to clear before replying in the most annoying way he could think of.

«Axel? _Please_.» He gave a look behind him. Fine. Kairi had taken Shiro in her arms. «The name’s Lea. Got it memorized?»

«You’re not supposed to be here!» Xigbar kept yelling at him, but did not leave his throne.

«Better check your crystal ball again, skunk face!» Kairi moved Shiro to her left side, then she summoned her Keyblade in her right.

«What, bad timing?» Lea added. It almost _hurt_ him to play the hero along with _that_ girl, but _right now it was about Shiro_ and he needed her help.

He took a look down. Xemnas had stopped King Mickey, his Heartless had taken Riku aside, and Sora had been pinned to the floor by a boy who literally was his spitting image in a smoked mirror.

«You had your perfect little script.» Lea set his eyes on the one who had to be the leader, an old repulsive man with a bald head and a goatee. «But you kinda forgot to write the sequel!»

Some of the hoodlums were already fading, but one instead sprang to his feet and slashed at Lea and Kairi with his weapon. And _Lea knew that claymore_. He recognized Saïx even before his hood fell backwards.

He had not pursued Xigbar… _he had been taken_.

«We gotta go!» Kairi helped him repel their assailant adding her Keyblade to his chakrams. She was the first to get down and she immediately handed Shiro to the bulkier Riku. «Getting into trouble like always, aren’t you, guys?»

«How is Axel alive?» Sora commented, tilting his head to the side. Lea noticed a hint of relief under his confused voice.

«No, I told you my name is…» Lea rolled his eyes. «Agh, whatever. Let’s get outta here!»

«We only have to resist until they go, they _can’t_ stay all in this time for long.» The King quickly explained. «Stand close!»

Before the King could finish speaking, from behind one of the Darknesses – Apprentice Xehanort’s Heartless, Lea couldn’t really forget the man who had struck him down – a gigantic dark monster emerged and tried to get his hands on Riku and the King.

Sora’s eyes went glassy for a moment. The boy span the Keyblade in his hand, in a pose that immediately rang some bells to Lea, he snarled: «No you _don’t_!», leapt in the air and repelled the monster, hitting it with his weapon and summoning a small gust of wind around their formation.

It was when his feet touched the floor again that Sora let go of his Keyblade and took a hand to his arm with an obviously pained grimace, as his knees started shaking. Kairi immediately stood in front of him, visibly worried, but _now_ the Darknesses were finally fading.

«We are out of time,» Xehanort looked at his fading acolytes. «Neither the union of light nor darkness has been achieved, and we must all return whence we came. But, the gathering of the seven and thirteen is nigh. Let us finish this at the fated place, once your Lights and my Darknesses have joined together!»

The old man was the last to vanish, as he still was speaking.

_Lea would have wanted to cry._

«That was so close…» Sora, leaning against Kairi, sighed in relief. He still looked a little pale, but whatever it had been, he seemed to be recovering.

«Where did you learn that? I don’t think I ever saw you so fast.» Kairi asked him.

«Let’s say I didn’t.» The boy gave her an embarrassed grin.

«We should go.» Riku took a better hold on Shiro and made her lay her head on his shoulder, then gestured to the exit with his own head.

«The ship is right outside. Where to…?» The King rushed to the front of the group.

«Merlin’s.» Kairi intervened. «Aerith was _really_ scared…»

* * *

People had gathered in the wizard’s house, and they all seemed incredibly worried.

Aerith was sitting on one of the chairs, Cloud and Tifa near her, Stitch was sitting in a corner, and Sora even recognized “Your Horror” with little Finn sleeping in his arms.

«Isa is alive.» Lea immediately went to the Justice, but he kept his gaze low, as if they all had failed. «But they got him.»

He spotted a stool in a corner and threw himself on it, then he started staring at his boots.

« _Shiro_!» Aerith immediately stood up and took the girl from Riku’s arms. «Is she OK?»

«She won’t wake up,» Mickey commented sadly. «I’ve already seen it happening… if her heart has been damaged up to that point…»

Sora gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. _And that could have been him_ …

“ _Sora, see?_ ” He heard Roxas’s voice in his head. “ _That’s why it had to be you. That’s why you needed to wake up and I needed to sleep. Stop blaming yourself… or just blame it on Xehanort._ ”

«Roxas…?» Sora didn’t care about the other people in the room. They had to find out eventually. «What happened in the castle? Was that you? Hitting the Guardian…?»

“ _Actually…_ ” Another voice, similar to Roxas’s but slightly less hoarse, intervened in a fake embarrassed tone.

«Okay. Can you now explain me why has my heart become some sort of hotel?»

The room fell silent.

The only person who didn’t seem really surprised – apart from Kairi maybe? – was Cloud, but he looked as if he had just had an eureka moment.

«Voices in your head?» he asked.

«Yes…» Sora admitted.

«Are they people you know? That you already met and remember?»

«Not quite, but…»

Cloud almost staggered backwards, his eyes wide open and a hand on his head. He had a different light in his eyes… as if someone had just reassured him that he wasn’t going crazy.

«Shiro talks to herself too sometimes.» Lea looked up for a moment and made commas with his fingers, then he seemed to understand something and looked at Sora. «Wait up, Roxas, you’re telling me you really are in there? Say something only Roxas could say!»

Sora stayed still and quiet, but Roxas took control for a moment and made him say: «Remember that time you woke up with a mustache drawn on your face and you were late for recon because you couldn’t get the ink off your face? Well… it wasn’t Shiro.»

Lea opened his eyes wide, then he shook his head and smiled. «Do you still think I wouldn’t miss you?»

Sora found himself returning the smile unwillingly, and hastily dried up a tear.

«Sora…» Riku went behind him and patted him on a shoulder. «I have an idea.»

«Huh?» The boy turned.

«Yen Sid talked about the Power of Waking. _Waking_. And Shiro’s stuck in a nightmare – she’s _asleep_. What if we could wake up her heart, like we did with the Sleeping Worlds?»

«That might work.» Sora approached Shiro, still asleep in Aerith’s arms. «If we don’t come back…»

«… then Kairi and I will save both of your butts!» Lea shook his head and gave them thumbs-up. Right after speaking, he remained in an embarrassed silence, as if something he wasn’t supposed to say had just slipped. Aerith, Cloud and the Justice gave him a glance, but Sora couldn’t understand the reason why.

«Okay, Sora, on my three.» Riku summoned his Keyblade, who had turned back to Way To The Dawn, and Sora did the same with the Kingdom Key. «One, two…»

* * *

They were on what looked like the summit of a mountain.

The ground beneath their feet was a well-kept lawn, the pinnacles were adorned by metal rings and chains, and the sky above their heads was blue like a painting.

«What is this place?» Sora mumbled.

Riku looked in another direction, and pointed at a castle not too far.

«I think it’s her home world,» he realized.

There was silence. Apart from the sound of their steps, the only noises were the wind and the clinking of the chains.

«Hello.»

The two boys had a start and turned. Behind them, standing on the top of a crumbling low wall and with his arms folded, there was a boy.

Sora would have said he was Rhyme’s age, but just like the other child, this boy had a wise look, almost an old man’s gaze. He had curly hair, of Shiro’s very same color, and like her, his clothes were mostly white and black, with a red bandana around his neck as the only splash of color.

«You…!» Riku almost lunged at him, but Sora held him back by an arm. They couldn’t know who he really was, and such an approach could have been a mistake.

«Nice to meet you two. Name’s Ephemer.» The boy lowered his arms and shrugged. «As for the “whatever I’m doing here” question, let’s just say I got _evicted_ long ago and Shiro needed a guardian. Win-win, I’m still alive and she’s still herself.»

«So you’re her conscience.» Riku immediately said out loud what Sora was thinking. «You… you lied to a child!»

«I saved her life.» Ephemer started walking back and forth on the wall, putting a foot in front of the other. «You know, under the Radiant Garden there’s an abandoned armor. With a Keyblade. They used to belong to a Master. Xemnas put that Keyblade in Shiro’s hand when she was, like, _seven_ years old, trying to make her manifest her own. Guess who held it back for five or six years so they wouldn’t put a Recusant’s Sigil on her?»

«A what?» It was Sora’s turn to ask questions.

«Recusant’s Sigil.» Ephemer traced an X in the air. «They almost put it on _you_ , you blockhead!»

Despite the boy seemed tranquil and was smiling, his behavior showed a slight impatience.

«I’ll say, Sora, you remind me of an old friend.»

«Yeah, but how do you know I used to have an X on my clothes?» Sora scratched his head.

«Xigbar told me and Shiro their first target was you, and that’s how Xehanort marks his targets.» Ephemer put his hands on his hips. «Think of it for a moment. Axel. Roxas. Saïx and his scars… once that kind of marking was made on students for their safety, with a couple of sashes over their clothes, and it was more like a rite than anything else. But that’s a long story for another day.»

His smile turned bitter, then he found another piece of wall and sat on it, looking at the sky.

«Shiro’s out of the woods, but you’ll have to unlock her heart. And I have a couple words for you.»

He turned serious.

«Don’t you think you’ve won because _this time_ we escaped. Xehanort has as many plans as hair in his butt crack. He’ll _have_ his seven versus thirteen, in a way or the other.» He stayed still. «And even when you’ll think you’re ready, he’ll try to draw you into a trap. There’s something that led him to becoming what he is, or somebody. Don’t take reckless decisions, don’t trust what you see, and _please_ , don’t think your blades will be your strength. If you want to make a difference, think of what happened today. Sora, you and Riku came out of it because of your bonds. You all saved Shiro because you all care for her. And… I can’t say I witnessed what happened in that Castle That Never Was… but… Ventus was there… _weren’t you_?»

«You _know_ Ventus?» Sora’s eyes were wide open.

Without him expecting it, a white ball of light emerged from his chest, and the shape of a boy materialized in front of him.

He would have thought it was Roxas, but the boy had lighter hair, shorter trousers, his jacket was of two different colors, and part of his left arm was covered by armor. He looked slightly lost.

«Do _I_ know you?» Ventus asked in a whisper, walking towards Ephemer.

Ephemer stared at him, lifting a corner of his mouth in a grimace. Sora and Riku stayed still, watching in silence.

«Hey, Ven.» Ephemer stood up, the ends of his bandana flapping in the mountain breeze. «Forgot about me?»

Ventus stayed still, staring at the other boy. He seemed taller, but Ephemer was acting as if he was older and bigger.

«You grew your hair out.» Ephemer commented, as if they were nothing but old classmates at a school reunion. «You actually grew tall yourself. I still remember how tiny you were when we met. A midget with two huge feet. And you didn’t stand up straight like you do now.»

«Were we friends?» Ventus asked again. «Before Xehanort?»

«Don’t even mention that madman, Ven, you’re not his only victim here.» He held out a hand, inviting Ventus to approach him. Ventus took Ephemer’s hand, and the shorter boy pulled him up on the wall.

«This place’s rather nice.» He commented. «Can’t beat our town for me… but it must be a nice world to call home.»

«It is.» Ventus answered. The two turned their backs to Sora and Riku, and looked at the horizon instead.

«When I saw your face again… well, I had heard rumors about you.» Ephemer told Ventus. «I could hardly believe that was really you. When we used to hang out… you were the runt of the litter. A missing person case, and you wanted to build a snowman. You actually _fell asleep in a graveyard_. And… I’m not even going to mention what happened with Lauriam and…»

«That name does ring some bells.» Ventus admitted. «Probably.»

Ephemer sighed. «I wish I could explain you everything. Face to face. But I don’t have time to keep Sora here. Xehanort is going to attack again. It’s not an if, it’s a _when_. And if you’ll have your Seven Guardians before his Thirteen Seekers, you’ll have more time to think about things and strike. He might try to get Shiro again… or someone else.» He put a hand on his arm. «I can’t fight. Not without harming Shiro. But if you don’t get into fever pitch with Sora, _you can_. More than I can do, at least. And your body is still out there, so unlike me, you have a way out. Watch carefully everything Sora does, intervene every time you can… be his guardian. And one of the Guardians when you’re yourself again.»

He shrugged and stared at the sun setting behind the mountains, then he turned at Ventus again. His voice was almost bitter and angry, and one of his hands pointed at the golden-haired boy.

«Show me you’re _not_ that runt _anymore_.»

Ventus lowered his head and his shoulders stooped down.

«I don’t even know who I was.»

«The question is, _who you are now_.» Ephemer walked in front of Ventus and hit him on the arm, making him stand straight again. Then he walked a few more steps away and turned to Sora and Riku.

«Ventus’s body is at Castle Oblivion, in a room no one can find. Shiro could get inside, but Axel could not see _or_ touch the door. I think that has something to do with Shiro’s mother, but I can’t say I have the answer to this mystery.»

«I think I do! We have to find Aqua!» Ventus hit his hand with a fist, and for the first time he smiled. He jumped off the wall, with a different spring in his steps, and he approached Sora and Riku.

«So, we have a plan, right?» He rubbed the back of his neck, like Sora had done countless times. «You don’t mind if I… stick with you for a little more, don’t you, Sora?»

Sora raised his shoulders and smiled. Ventus vanished again, and a ball of light floated to Sora and sank in his chest.

«Alright.» Sora put a hand over his heart, then he looked around and summoned his Keyblade. «Let’s wake ‘Shroom up and get back outside.»

* * *

Almost everyone was still in the room, save for Tifa and Stitch, but some had changed their positions. Cloud was discussing something with Aerith, Lea was sitting on one of the chairs and was holding Shiro on his lap, the Justice was discussing something with Merlin and Mickey, and Kairi was looking outside, tapping nervously her foot on the ground.

«It’s done.» Riku announced. «She might wake up even now.» There were still _many_ things he didn’t understand. So Ventus had been stuck on Sora for… _how long_? Shiro’s conscience _existed_ and his name was Ephemer! _And he was an old friend of Ventus, whom Ventus didn’t even remember!_

Riku was quite sure that if he didn’t sit somewhere to discuss everything with the other guardians of light as soon as possible, everything they had found out that day would have made them all crazier than the aracuan bird.

Meanwhile, Lea gave Shiro a couple of slight pokes on her shoulders, calling her name in a gentle voice.

«Come on, ‘Shroom, they’re all worried… Shiro… ‘Shroom?»

«Notmuhfaul…» the girl mumbled. «He tried to…»

Shiro’s eyes opened, and she looked up at Lea’s face.

«… Axel?»

«’Morning, ‘Shr…» Lea tried to say, but Shiro shut him up by bringing a fist to his face.

«You ugly _stupid_!» She stared at him with misty eyes, then she started hitting again his chest and shoulders. «Stupid, stupid, STUPID!»

«He asked for it.» Cloud commented to Aerith.

«You meanie! I thought you died!»

Lea didn’t even try answering, and just let Shiro hit him for a few moments, then as soon as she stood up he told her.

«Shiro, it’s Lea, not Axel. It’s Axel who died.»

«I _still_ thought I lost you!» Shiro pouted at him, then she marched towards an empty chair.

«We’ll have to inform Yen Sid everything is fine,» Mickey headed towards the door. «Sora, Riku, come on.»

«Oh, wait a second, you.» Merlin pointed his wand at the King. There was a puff of smoke, and the room around everyone vanished.

All the occupants of Merlin’s living room found themselves in the Mysterious Tower, in the same exact position in which the smoke had reached them. Lea, Shiro and Kairi, who had been seated when the magic had gotten to them, found themselves in the same position at a table where someone – Donald and Goofy, maybe? – had set the table for a tea party.

Seeing the room had gotten crowded, Donald started stomping a webbed foot on the floor and shaking up his fists.

«Why didn’t you tell us we’d have been so _many_?»

«There’s a time and a place for celebrating, Donald.» Merlin glared at him. «Yen Sid! I hope you must have at least thought those two poor boys might have needed a chaperone for their test!» He shook a bony fist at him.

Several pairs of eyes were pointed at the sorcerer. It wasn’t like Merlin, Riku thought, was wrong about that… if the test had been rigged since its beginning, some kind of control would have avoided what had actually happened… and hadn’t it been for Shiro…

«You obtained what you wanted. They have the Power of Waking, even if you could have _spared_ them the way they showed it and gained it.» Merlin spoke again. «But _neither_ of them can be called a Master. Not after this so-called test. A rigged exam cannot be valid, and the last time it was considered as such, I recall your Order collided with _total disaster_!»

Yen Sid remained in silence, but Riku saw Mickey lowering his head and ears. The boy couldn’t help asking himself what had actually happened the last time someone had considered _valid_ the result of a rigged test.

«What do you suggest we should do, then?» Yen Sid asked Merlin.

«Give them a _real_ , proper test. A Master watching, no competition or battle for supremacy. Equal power, equal truths.»

«Uhm… that’s easy. Everyone, stand by the walls!» It was Mickey who spoke. «Sora, Riku, come forward.»

The study seemed rather small to take a test, at least in Riku’s opinion, but Merlin waved his wand again and they all found themselves in one of the bigger rooms at the lower floors. Both Riku and Sora had been conveniently placed over two white marks in the middle of the room, all the others were with their backs against the walls (Shiro had managed to snatch a cookie before the teleport).

Yen Sid, Mickey and Merlin were, too, in the middle of the room, as referees to the duel. Yen Sid looked rather defeated, but he spoke anyway.

«Sora, Riku, _take position_. You’ll be facing each other in combat. There will not be points and we will not declare a winner. When equal powers clash, their nature will be revealed… and that is what we want to see from you two.»

He raised a hand to press on the bridge of his nose. Riku summoned Way to The Dawn, and Sora did the same with his Kingdom Key. If it was a duel they wanted, well, Riku and Sora had been doing that ever since daycare. Sora even _grinned_ as he put up his guard, then he raised his hand at Riku.

«Can I have this dance?»

Behind him, Kairi covered her face with a hand and burst into laughter.

Did Sora really want to dance? _Good_. They’d dance.

«Ready?» Merlin raised his sword. «Fight!»

Riku took a deep breath, then he lunged forward. No score, no winner. _Since when he and Sora had not kept a score, or counted wins_? It had almost always been a competition for them, and yet now they had just been told _no score and no winner_.

It was as if something had been lifted, as if an invisible barrier had been broken. Riku attacked and parried and leapt forward or backwards, and Sora was always there defending and countering, and jumping and ducking. They could have played that game blindfolded, for how well they knew each other.

The Keyblade vibrating in his hand, the stone floor under his feet, Sora’s laugh in his ears, the silence from their audience… it was all so _clear_ it almost felt like time had stopped.

Riku _knew_ they wouldn’t have lasted for long, not after fighting the Xehanorts, and their movements got gradually slower, until after one last time they had crossed their blades, Sora and Riku looked in each other’s eyes and both stopped.

«Giving up already?» Riku made a step backwards.

«Get real! Look at which one of us is tired!» Sora chuckled, but he stepped backwards, too.

Yen Sid raised both arms and pointed them at the two boys. «Enough!» he announced.

He lowered his arms and walked towards Sora and Riku, who instinctively leant against each other. Only in that moment Riku realized how tired he really was.

«I could really use a couple cookies right now…» Sora said out loud what Riku had started thinking about the food at the upper floor.

«You already eat way too much sugar.» Riku gently shoved him.

Yen Sid cleared his throat.

«We have been watching you and we came up with a decision. For how both of you were weary from your previous clash with the Seekers of Darkness, you did your best in battle,» the sorcerer said. «And you both deserve the title of Master.»

He remained in silence for a moment.

«And I still think you wouldn’t have needed another duel to show it.»

Riku had no words. _He imagined_ Sora would have passed, but him? He had feared the darkness could have ruined his test… he had been carrying a Keyblade for far _less_ time than Sora, his experience could be counted in _weeks_ …

«… what?» Sora said in a whisper. He looked at Yen Sid, then at Riku, then at Yen Sid again. His face quickly changed from surprise to a wide grin. Riku merely had the time to see him move before his best friend crushed his ribcage with his usual hug. Kairi came immediately later because of the distance, squeezing them both.

«Congratulations, you thickos!» She made a step backwards, then raised both arms and ruffled Sora’s hair with a hand and Riku’s with the other.

«Give us a break, Kairi!» Riku playfully tried to swat her hand away. «It’s _Master_ thickos!»

While the three still fought, the room changed again and they found themselves in the study again, and the table seemed to have increased in size. Sora wriggled away from Kairi’s grip and rushed to stuff his mouth with cookies.

«Keyblade Masters, huh.» Lea chuckled. «I’m definitely not doing that when it’s my turn.»

«I’ll hold you to that!» Kairi left Riku alone, only to point an accusing finger at the former Nobody.

«Whaf… Axel?» Sora commented with his mouth full. «You, a Keyblade wielder?»

«Yeah! But I can’t always get mine to materialize…» Lea shrugged embarrassedly. «I wanted to use it to save ‘Shroom here, but…» He reached out and…

… initially, Riku could have sworn it was just the chakram, but one of the tips had been replaced by a flaming blade forming a spiked loop at the end.

«Fine, may I have your attention now?» Merlin pointed his wand at a blackboard. «Before you collapse, we have to take stock of what happened. _Tomorrow_ we’re back in action, and we have to know who’s going where, when, and why.»

The blackboard turned on its axis, revealing its blank surface. Merlin put a piece of chalk in Riku’s hands.

«Sora, Riku, tell us what you saw. If the others have anything else to say, we’ll take turns.»

«Now,» Riku went at the blackboard and drew a line to split it, then he waited for Sora to join him, then broke the chalk in half and gave him a piece. «Seven… versus thirteen. That’s what Xehanort said. So, if we put him on a side…» He wrote on the right side of the blackboard their enemy’s name. «… and us on the other…» He wrote on the left side “Riku – Sora – Kairi – Mickey – Lea”. «We’re missing two.»

«We will need to make haste in finding them,» Yen Sid intervened. «If Xehanort finds his number thirteen before we find our six and seven, he will find _himself_ two more lights… and they possibly will not be people with the abilities to overpower him.»

«Like the Princesses?» Kairi asked, while Sora, seemingly not worried about what the former Master had just said, wrote “Aqua” and “Ventus” under Lea’s name with his piece of chalk.

«Yes, but not the same girls you met, Kairi.» Yen Sid looked at the girl. «Despite you maintaining your powers, the other six pure lights have passed their torch, to six other girls. In addition to the lost Guardians of Light, we have to identify and find these six other girls before Xehanort’s Dark Seekers do.»

While Yen Sid spoke, Sora divided the left side of the blackboard in two blocks and wrote “Six unknown Princesses” in the lower part. Then, with his tongue sticking out of his mouth, he moved to the Darkness column and wrote “Vanitas – Ansem – Xemnas – past Xehanort – Saïx – Xigbar – THEY’RE MISSING ONE”.

He then stopped, staring at the piece of chalk in his hand and sulking for an unknown reason. Then, Sora looked at Riku.

«Xehanort said he has another of ours in his lines,» he said sadly, then he slowly wrote “Terra” across the line that split Lights and Darknesses.

As they all remained in silence, Shiro seemed to feel the need to intervene.

«What about me?» she protested. «We’re not five, we’re six!»

«You’ve already done more than enough, Shiro.» Lea took her by a wrist and made her sit down. «Down to make all the people in this room get sick with worry.»

«At least I can always summon my Keyblade, duh.» Shiro snorted and puffed her cheeks.

«We risked _losing_ you today, Shiro.» Aerith went to her and knelt to her level. «We lost _too many_ people…»

Shiro remained in silence. Sora would have expected her to reply again – or that was what _Roxas_ thought at least – but she simply started clutching her hands in her lap, while her lip was quivering.

«I’ve seen… _things_.» She confessed. «Axel… a Dark Corridor… and Zack… Xigbar… the Snipers…» She looked down. «An hour ago. Apprentice Xehanort, on a black beach, he attacked my Mom!»

«The nightmare… the visions we saw.» Riku explained.

«Hey… ‘Shroom.» Lea hugged Shiro. «I am right here, and I’m not going anywhere. We know the old picklepuss… he probably lied to you… he probably hasn’t shown you _everything_ that happened.»

«Conscience told me you were defending Roxas…» Shiro commented.

Lea raised his shoulders.

«In the past I would have said I was.» He smiled. «But isn’t Sora worth protecting too?»

Sora cleared his throat.

«Shiro, Conscience has a name.» He intervened. «He’s a boy, and his name is Ephemer. He told me he’s an old friend of Ventus… and one of Xehanort’s victims. I think he took shelter in your heart just like Roxas and Ventus did with me.»

Shiro looked at Sora, flabbergasted, then she directly addressed “her conscience”.

«You mean that you’ve been pulling my leg, all this time?... I _know_ it was Saïx who told me you were the voice of my conscience, but… just you wait until I see your face…»

She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

«We _have_ to solve these problems quickly.» Yen Sid called for everyone’s attention. «The three good fairies have designed new clothes for you, that will protect from Darkness just like and _better than_ the black coats. Kairi and Lea, you’ve been a godsend at the Castle That Never Was, but you both need further training before you can get into action again. We can’t let you enter the battlefield unprepared. Shiro will be attending training with you. Riku, Mickey, you already know the Realm of Darkness. Your task will be locating the Lost Guardians, commencing from Aqua. Sora, identifying the Princesses and taking care of their safety will be your chore, at least until other Guardians will be able to take over.» He looked at Kairi and Lea.

«And how can we prevent Goatface to find another number thirteen?» Lea intervened. «I can’t shake the feeling he’ll have a plan B somehow.»

«Wait, I think Yen Sid has a point.» Riku shook his head, stating bitterly. «Ephemer told us we have to expect a _when_ , not an _if_. My only objection now is that I will need Sora’s help with Ventus, maybe once Kairi and Lea are ready to take over, so we need a faster way to signal our movements.»

«I think that problem’s already solved.» Mickey grinned at him. «Chip and Dale at the castle were working on something.»

«Yeah, and Cid gave them access to Ate and Nines to maintain a server.» Aerith’s intervention caused Shiro to smile slightly.

Riku looked at everyone in the room.

«I guess… this is it, then.» He sighed.

«Good.» Merlin rolled up his sleeves. «I think you kids need a good night’s sleep. Are you coming to the Garden?»

Sora’s look went to Riku and Kairi, and they both nodded in approval. Merlin drew his wand.

«Very good. Now hold on, because we’re about to depart! And one, two and…!»

* * *

_«But you’ll visit, right?»_

_«I’ll stop by once you’re a true hero.»_

_«Stop by once me and him are both heroes!»_

_«Oh, so you mean never come back?»_

_He was standing in front of a castle he had never really seen, and he held a Keyblade in each hand._

_«Fate be changed, look inside, mend the bond torn by pride.» An unknown voice echoed in the dark, and Sora ended up on a stained glass floor, on his stained glass floor, and Vanitas appeared on the edge, staring at him and saying once more: «Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it.»_

_A world bathed with light, but without a sun. Sea and sky as far as one’s eye could see._

_He heard someone weeping._

_«The question is, who you are now.»_

For a moment, Sora felt scared when he did not recognize his room. Then he heard Riku’s snoring next to him, and a kick from Kairi caught him on his ankles, and he saw the usual nightlight on one of the sockets, and then he remembered. The exam, the Xehanort trap, saving Shiro.

_He was a Master! Him!_

Right. They had been offered a place to sleep at the gardener’s place – he had an empty room with a double bed that had belonged to his teenage son before he vanished – and he was supposed to leave the following morning to look for the New Seven Hearts.

It felt weird, sleeping in a stranger’s house, even if the elder couple who had offered them the room had mentioned that once a little girl named Kairi had been living in the house near theirs, and they were quite sure _his_ Kairi was their former neighbor.

“Her brother was in Zack’s class”, they had said. They seemed to have been hit _very_ hard by the loss of their son. Sora would have wanted to help them, but if what Shiro had told him was real, there no longer was hope for that boy.

He silently got off the foot of the bed and stood up. One of the doors in the room led directly to the backyard, and Sora really needed a breath of fresh air.

He opened the door and leant against the outside wall, remaining for several minutes staring at the stars. The house next to the Fairs’ really seemed to have been abandoned for years, but there was a swing in the backyard, one of those made with chains and a tire hanging off a tree. Someone had scribbled the name “Eadmund” on the wheel – was that the name of the girl’s elder brother? Was _that really_ Kairi’s former house?

Sora crossed the lawn and sat on the swing, that slightly creaked under his weight.

«Hey, Sora.»

The boy had a start. Not too far there was Cloud, leaning with his back against a tree. He was staring at the window of Zack’s room, through which Sora could glimpse the light coming off Kairi’s nightlight.

«Can’t sleep?» Sora left the swing and approached him.

Cloud folded his arms and started looking at the sky.

«Remember Olympus?» He asked him. «I knew that world because Zack had told me about it. He told me he met there a boy named Ventus… that they had promised each other they’d meet there again… once Zack and Hercules became true heroes.»

«Herc actually made it.» Sora shrugged.

«And Zack… he wouldn’t have fought Xemnas. He did it… because I was in harm’s way.» Cloud looked down. «Do you think… he became a true hero?» He furrowed his eyebrows. «I wish I had _an answer_. How can a _true hero_ die like that? For how they talked about it at Olympus…»

Sora felt his heart invaded by a sadness that was not his own, and one of his hands went up to his face to dry a tear. Ventus wasn’t saying anything, but Sora felt his pain.

That circle needed to be closed.

«We’ll be seeing Herc tomorrow.» Sora resolved. «Together.»

For a few hours, the Princesses could wait. Sora could not right all wrongs, leave a goodbye to all the forgotten victims of that useless war, but despite how small such an act of kindness could have been, it felt like the best first step for his adventure as a Master.

It was time Ventus stopped by to visit his friends.

* * *

_The sorcerer leant against the wall of the cave._

_Outside, the small beach was bathed in sunlight._

_A boy stopped in front of the entry and stared at him. He had to be eight, maybe nine years old. His skin was dark and his curly hair was shaven on the temples, and his inquisitorial look was typical of a child of that age. He was about to enter the cave when…_

_«Finn, c’mon!» Another, smaller, white kid, maybe seven years old, grabbed the older boy’s wrist. He was dressed in orange overalls and a blue striped t-shirt, and his oddly dark blue hair reached his ears. «Your Bubba’fh looking for ufh!» A couple missing front teeth caused him to speak with a distinct lisp._

_«Hang on, River, I think there’s a ghost in the cave.» Finn gestured to his friend to move aside._

_«Who carefh about ghoffhff!» River replied, visibly disgusted. «Dad can hand them their buttfh, heh. Or Mom too, or Fhhiro, or Roffhas or Ffh-ion.»_

_«Why do you always call for the grown-ups?» Finn rolled his eyes._

_«I don’t, it’fh them who come!» River protested. He was about to say something else when a man in a long trenchcoat, a grey bandana around his neck, amber-colored eyes and black hair spiking out from under a hat grabbed Finn by the collar and River by the suspenders._

_«What are you runts up to this time?»_

_He could be seen by children – their families were unlikely to believe their stories – but Strange decided to vanish now an adult had appeared. It would have been rather hard to explain who he was and why he was there, years after his time, spying on the future to understand if his decision was right._

_But the sorcerer had the answers he was looking for_ , he told himself as he went back to his own study, in his own time.

Even in that timeline, the darkness would have not snuffed out the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did anyone of you imagine it was Ephemer all along? We did drop a clue or two in "The Legacy"... as for who are the three people in Strange's part at the end... well, you may have recognized Finn since you heard his name, now for the other two... well, theories are open. ;) 
> 
> Stay tuned... "The Guardians" is coming soon!

**Author's Note:**

> So, who DID guess that Pence's older brother in The Legacy was actually Prompto? The hints were actually there! ;)


End file.
